2 = 1 8 =^ ^ 2 1 ^ 7 sov^ %a3AiNa]UV^ '^' s uu. F0% ^^orCALIFO/?^ > y - :^[i]NiV[;?^-> ■,'ns^NCp[/;r> •SOl^ %a3AINn3WV :«?' vr '^^AHvaaiH^ "^^Aavaanis^ ^ \\U I'MIVFR.r/ %Ji3AINn-3WV^ .vin^Afjr.rifj-. '^. soi^ %a3AiNn-3UV^ v^lOSANCELfj> o '^/ia3AiNn-3\^v.~' ^RYNtHBRARYa^ .A-Opr.' m 3. ijrffis, ^xnh^or. HISTORY OF FRIEDRICH II. OF PRUSSIA. CALLED FREDERICK THE GREAT. THOMAS CARLYLE. [1858-1865.] IN TEN VOLUMES. VOL. III. LONDON: CHAPMAN AND HALL, 193 PICCADILLY. 1873. LONDON : KOBSON AND SONS, PRINTERS, PAN'CRAS ROAD, N.W. y. 3 CONTENTS OF VOLUME III. BOOK VIII. CROWN-PRINCE RETRIEVED: LIFE AT CUSTRIN. NoVEMBEK 1730 — FeBKUAKV I732. CHAP. PAGE I. Chaplain Muller waits on the Crown-Prince i u. Crown-Prince to repent and not perish . \ Crown-Prince begins a new course, p. 7. III. WiLHELMiNAiSTo WED THE Prince OF Baireuth 10 iV. Criminal Justice in Preussen AND elsewhere 16 Case of Schlubhut, p. 17. Ciise of the Criminal-Collegium itself, 20. Skipper Jenkins in the Gulf of Florida, 22. Baby Carlos gets his Apanage, 24. V. Interview of Majesty and Crown-Prince at CuSTRIN . . . . . .26 Schulenburg's Three Letters to Grumkow, on Visits to the Crown-Prince, during the Ciistrin time, p. 35. His Majesty's Building Operations, 47. VI. \Vilhelmina's Wedding ..... 50 BOOK IX. LAST STAGE OF FRIEDRICH'S APPRENTICESHIP: LIFE IN RUPPIN. 1732-1736. I. Princess Elizabeth Christina of Brunswick- Bevern ....... 58 Who his Majesty's Choice is ; and Vihat the Crown-Prince thinks of it, p. 66. Duke of Lorraine arrives in Potsdam and in Berlin, 75. Betrothal of the fJrown- Prince to the Brunswick Charmer, Niece of Imperial Majesty, Monday evening, loth March 17^2, 77. 1542173 iv CONTENTS OF VOLUME III. CHAr. TAGIC II. Small Incidents at Ruppin .... 79 HI. The Salzburgers ...... 86 IV. Prussian Majesty visits the Kaiser . .100 V. Ghost of the Double-Marriage rises ; to no purpose 117 Session of Tobacco-Parliament, 6tli December 1732, p. 120. VI. King August meditating great Things for Poland . . . . . . .123 VII. Crown-Prince's Marriage . . . .127 VIII. King August dies; and Poland takes Fire . 134. Poland has to find a new King, p. 136. Of the Candidates ; of the Conditions. How the Elec- tion went, 138. Poland on Fire ; Dantzig stands Siege, 142. IX. Kaiser's Shadow-Hunt has caught Fire . 143 Subsequent course of the War, in the Italian part of it, p. 146. Course of the War, in the German part of it, 148. X. Crown-Prince goes to the Rhine Campaign . 149 Glimpse of Lieutenant Chasot, and of other Acquisitions, p. 174. Crown-Prince's Visit to Baireuth on the w ay home, 176. XI. In Papa's Sick-room ; Prussian Inspections : End of War . . . . . .180 BOOK X. AT REINSBERG. 1736-1740. I. Mansion OF Reinsberg . . . , .196 Of Monsieur Jordan and the Literary Set, p. 205, II. Of \'oltaire and the Literary Correspond- ences 210 III. Crown-Prince makes a Morning Call . . 235 IV. News of thi-: Day . . . . . .242 Of Berg and Jiilich again ; and of Lu'sciiis witli the one Razor, p. 247. V. Visit at Loo . . . . . . .251 Crown-Prince Ijccomes a Freemason ; and is harangued by Monsieur de Bielfeld, p. 254. Scckendorf gets lodged in Gratz, 260. 'I'he l'".ar of Jenkins rcemerges, 262. CONTENTS OF VOLUME III. v CHAr. I-AGK VI. Last Year ok Reinsberg; Journey to Preus- SEN ....... 264 Pine's Horace ; and the Anti-Maccliiavel, p. 266. I'riedrich in Preussen again ; at the Stud of Trakehnen. A tragically great Event coming on, 270. VII. Last Year of Reinsberg : Transit of Bal- timore AND other Persons and Things . 275 Bielfeld, what he saw at Reinsberg and aroinid, p. 279. Turk War ends ; Spanish War begins, A Wedding in Petersburg, 282. VIII. Death of Friedrich Wilhelm . . . 2S5 MAPS. Custrin ......... 43 Philipsburg 170 Kingdom of Prussia .... to face p. 298 HISTORY FREDERICK THE GREAT. BOOK VIII. CROWN-PRINCE RETRIEVED : LIFE AT CUSTRIN. November 1730 — February 1732. CHAPTER I. CHAPLAIN MULLER WAITS ON THE CROWN-PRINCE. Friedricii's feelings at this juncture arc not made known to us by himself in the least ; or credibly by others in any con- siderable degree. As indeed in these confused Prussian History- Books, opulent in nugatory pedantisms and learned marine- stores, all that is human remains distressingly obscure to us ; so seldom, and then only as through endless clouds of ever- whirling idle dust, can we catch the smallest direct feature ol the young man, and of his real demeanour or meaning, on the present or other occasions ! But it is evident this last pheno- menon fell upon him like an overwhelming cataract ; crushed him down under the immensity of sorrow, confusion and de- spair; his own death not a theory now, but probably a near fact, — a welcome one in wild moments, and then anon so un- welcome. Frustrate, bankrupt, chargeable with a iriend's lost life, sure enough he, for one, is : what is to become of him ? Whither is he to turn, thoroughly beaten, foiled in all his en- terprises? Proud young soul as he was : the ruling Powers, be they just, be they unjust, have proved too hard for him! We VOL. III. B 2 CROWN-PRINCE RETRIEVI':D. r.,.okViii. 6th-igth Nov. 1730. hear cf tragic vestiges still traceable ofFriedrich, belonging to this time: texts of Scripture quoted by him, pencil-sketches of his drawing; expressive of a mind dwelling in Golgothas, and pathetically, not defiantly, contemplating the very worst. Chaplain Miiller of the Gens-d'Armes, being found a pious and intelligent man, has his orders not to return at once from Ciistrin ; but to stay there, and deal Avith the Prince, on that horrible Predestination topic and his other unexampled back- slidings which have ended so. Miiller staid accordingly, for a couple of weeks, intensely busy on the Predestination topic, and generally in assuaging, and mutually mollifying, paternal Majesty and afflicted Son. In all which he had good success; and especially on the Predestination point was triuinphantly successful. Miiller left a little Book in record of his procedures there; which, had it not been bound over to the official tone, might have told us something. His Correspondence with the King, during those two weeks, has likewise been mostly printed ;i and is of course" still more official, — teaching us next to no- thing, except poor Friedrich Wilhelm's profoundly devotional mood, anxieties about 'the claws of Satan' and the like, which we were glad to hear of above. In Miiller otherwise is small help for us. But, fifty years afterwards, there was alive a Son of this Miiller's ; an innocent Country Parson, not wanting in sense, and with much simplicity and veracity ; who was fished-out by Nicolai, and set to recalling what his Father used to say of this adventure, much the grandest of his life. In Miiller Junior's Letter of Reminiscences to Nicolai we find some details, got from his Father, which arc worth gleaning : 'Whei my Father first attempted, by royal order, to bring the ' Crovvn-rrince to acknowledgment and repentance of the fault com- ' milted, Crown-Prince gave this excuse or explanation: "As his ' Father could not endure the sight of him, he Iiad meant to get out of ' the way of his displeasure, and go to a Court with which his Father 'was in friendship and relationship,"' — clearly indicating England, think the Miillers Junior and Senior. ' For proof that the intention was towards England this other 'circumstance serves, that the one confidant — Heir von Keith, if I ' mistake not' (no, you don't mistake), 'had already bespoken a ship ' for passage out.' — Here is something still more uncxi)ected : ' Forstcr, i. 376-370. Chap. I. MULLER WAITS ON CROWN-PRINCE. 3 6t!i-i9th Nov. 1730. ' My Father used to say, he found an excellent knowledge and con- viction of the traths of religion in the Crown-Prince. By the Prince's arrangement, my Father, who at first lodged with the Commandant, had to take up his quarters in the room right above the Prince ; who daily, often as early as six in the morning, rapped on the ceiling for him to come down; and then they would di.spute and discuss, some- times half-days long, about the different tenets of the Christian Sects; — and my Father said, the Prince was perfectly at home in the Polemic Doctrines of the Reformed (Calvinistic) Church, even to the minutest points. As my Father brought him proofs from Scripture, the Prince asked him one time, How he could keep chapter and verse so exactly in his memory? Father drew from his pocket a little Hand-Concord- ance, and showed itTiim as one help. This he had to leave with the Prince for some days. On getting it back, he found inside on the fly- leaf, sketched in pencil,' — what is rather notable to History, — 'the figure of a man on his knees, with two swords hanging crosswise over his head; and at the bottom these words of Psalm Seventy-third (verses 25, 26), Whom have I in Heaven but thee 1 And there is none upon earth that I desire besides thee. My flesh and my heart fainteth and faileth ; hut God is the strength of my heart, and my poiiion for- ever. ' — Poor Friedrich, this is a very unexpected pencil-sketch on his part ; but an undeniable one ; betokening abstruse night-thoughts and forebodings in the present juncture ! — ' Whoever considers this fine knowledge of religion, and reflects on ' the peculiar character and genius of the young Herr, which was ever ' struggling towards light and clearness (for at that time he had f/ot be- ' come indifferent to religion, he often prayed with my Father on his ' knees), — will find that it was morally impossible this young Prince ' could have thought' (as some foolish persons have asserted) ' of throw- ' ing himself into the arms of Papal Superstition,' (seeking help at Vienna, marrying an Austrian Archduchess, and I know not what, ) ' or ' allow the intrigues of Catholic Priests to' — Oh no, PI err Midler, no- body but very foolish persons could imagine .such a thing of this youn^^ Herr. ' When my Father, Plerr von Katte's execution being ended, hast- ' ened to the Crown-Prince ; he finds him miserably ill {st-'ir a/terirt) ; ' advises him to take a cooling-powder in water, both which materials ' were ready on the table. This he presses on him : but the Prince al- ' ways shakes his head.' Suspects poison, you think? ' Hereupon my ' Father takes from his pocket a paper, in which he carried cooling- ' powder for his own use; fLakes-out a portion of it into his hand, and ' so into his mouth ; and now the Crown-Prince grips at my Father's 'powder, and takes that.' Privately to be made away with; death resolved upon in some way! thinks the desperate young man?- That scene of Katte's execution, and of the Prince's and - Nico'i.ii, Anckdoten, vi. 183-189. 4 CROWN-PRINCE RETRIEVED. jw Dickens, olh riiul iQlIi December 1730. Chap. ir. PRINCE TO REPENT AND NOT PERISH. 5 Cth-igth Nov, 1730. then Linger ; and for certain, Donhof, — two worthy gentlemen not known to any of my readers, nor to me, except as names. The rest arc all coldly of opinion that the military code say;; Death. Other codes and considerations may say this and that, which it is not in their province to touch upon ; this is what the military code says : and they leave it there. The Junius Brutus of a Royal Majesty had answered in. his own heart grimly. Well then ! But his Councillors, Old Dessauer, Grumkow, Seckendorf, one and all interpose vehe- mently. " Prince of the Empire, your Majesty, not a Lieu- tenant-Colonel only ! Must not, cannot;" — nay good old Bud- denbrock, in the fire of still unsuccessful pleading, tore open his waistcoat: " If your Majesty requires blood, take mine; that other you shall never get, so long as I can speak !" Foreign Courts interpose ; Sweden, the Dutch ; the English in a cir- cuitous way, round by Vienna to wit ; finally the Kaiser him- self sends an Autograph ;i for poor Queen Sophie has applied even to Seckendorf, will be friends with Grumkow himself, and in her despair is knocking at every door. Junius Brutus is said to have had paternal affections withal. Friedrich Wil- helm, alone against the whispers of his own heart and the voices of all men, yields at last in this cause. To Seckendori, who has chalked-out a milder didactic plan of treatment, still rigorous enough, 2 he at last admits that such plan is perhaps good ; that the Kaiser's Letter has turned the scale with him ; and the didactic method, not the beheading one, shall be tried. That Donhof and Schvverin, with their talk of mercy, with " their eyes upon the Rising Sun," as is evident, have done them'selves no good, and shall perhaps find it so one day. But that, at any rate, Friedrich's life is spared ; Katte's execution shall suffice in that kind. Repentance, prostrate submission and amendment, — these may do yet more for the prodigal, if he will in heart return. These points, sometime before the 8th of November, we find to be as good as settled. The unhappy prodigal is in no condition to resist farther. Chaplain MUller had introduced himself with Katte's dying admonition lb the Crown-Prince to repent and submit. Chajj- lain Miiller, with his wholesome cooling-powders, with his ' Date, nth October 1730 (FOister, i. 380). * His Letter to the King, ist November 1730 (in Furster, i. 375, 376). 6 CROWN-PRINCE RETRIEVED. Bookviil. 6tli-i9lh Nov. 1730. ghostly counsels, and considerations of temporal and eternal nature, — we saw how he prospered almost beyond hope. Even on Predestination, and the real nature of Election by Free Grace, all is coming right, or come, reports Miiller. The Chaplain's Reports, Friedrich Wilhelm's grimly mollified Responses on the same : they are written, and in confused form have been printed ; but shall be spared the English reader. And Grumkow has been out at Ciistrin, preaching to the same purport from other texts : Grumkow, with the thought ever present to him, " What if Friedrich Wilhelm should die ?" is naturally an eloquent preacher. Enough, it has been set- tled (perhaps before the day of Katte's death, or at the latest three days after it, as we can see). That if the Prince will, and can with free conscience, take an Oath ("no mental re- servation," mark you!) of contrite repentance, of perfect pro- strate submission, and purpose of future entire obedience and conformity to the paternal mind in all things, " Gnadenwahl" included, — the paternal mind may possibly relax his durance a little, and put him gradually on proof again. ^ Towards which issue, as Chaplain Miiller reports, the Crown-Prince is visibly gravitating, Avith all his weight and will. The very Gtiadeuwahl is settled ; the young soul (truly a lover of Truth, your Majesty) taps on his ceiling, niy lloor being overhead, before the winter sun rises, as a signal that I must come down to him ; — so eager to have error and dark- ness purged away. Believes himself, as I believe him, ready to undertake that Oath ; desires, however, to see it first, that he may maturely study every clause of it. — Say you verily so? answers Majesty. And may my ursine heart flow out again, and blubber gratefully over a sinner saved, a poor Son plucked as brand from the burning ? ' God, the Most High, give His ' blessing on it, then !' concludes the paternal Majesty : ' And ' as He often, by wondrous guidances, strange paths and thorny ' steps, will bring men into the Kingdom of Christ, so may our ' Divine Redeemer help that this prodigal son be brought into ' His communion. That his godless heart be beaten till it is ' softened and changed ; and so he be snatched fr9Ri the claws ' of Satan. This grant us the Almighty God and Father, for ' our Lord Jesus Christ and His passion and death's sake ! •' King's LcUcr to Miiller, 81I1 Novcinbcr (FOrslci-, i. 379). Chap. II. PRINCE TO REPENT AND NOT PERISH. 7 lyth Nov. 1730. ' Amen ! — -I am, for the rest, your well-affectioned King, Fried- ' RICH WiLHELM {IVusicrhauseii, 2>th November ijso).''^ Croiun-Prince begms a new Course. It was Monday 6th November, when poor Katte died. Within a fortnight, on the second Sunday after, there has a Select Commission, Grumkow, Borck, Buddenbrock, with three other Soldiers, and the Privy Councillor Thulmeyer, come out to Ciistrin : there and then, Sunday November igth,^ these Seven, with due solemnity, administer the Oath (terms of Oath conceivable by readers) ; Friedrich being found ready. He signs the Oath, as well as audibly swears it : whereupon his sword is restored to him, and his prison-door opened. Fle steps forth to the Town Church with his Commissioners ; takes the sacrament ; listens, with all Ciistrin, to an allusive Sermon on the subject ; ' text happily chosen, preacher handling it well.' Text was Psalm Seventy-seventh, verse eleventh (tenth of our English version), And I said. This is my injinnity ; but I will remember the years of the right hand of the Most High; or, as Luther's version more intelligibly gives it. This I have to sttffer J the right hand of the Most High can change all. Preacher (not Miiller but another) rose gradually into didactic pathos ; Prince, and all Ciistrin, were weeping, or near weep- ing, at the close of the business." Straight from Church the Prince is conducted, not to the Fortress, but to a certain Town Mansion, which he is to call his own henceforth, under conditions : an erring Prince half- liberated, and mercifully put on proof again. His first act here is to write, of his own composition, or helped by some official hand, this Letter to his All-serenest Papa ; which must be introduced, though, except to readers of German who know the ' Dero' (Theirs?), 'Allerdurchlaiichtigster,' and strange pipe- clay solemnity of the Court-style, it is like to be in great part lost in any translation : 'Ciistrin, 19th November 1730. ' AU-serenest and AU-graciousest Father, — To your Royal Majesty, ' my AU-graciousest Father, have,' — i.e. ' I have,' if one durst write the * Forster, i. 379. 5 Nicolai, exactest of men, only that Documents were occasionally less accessible in his time, gives (A)tekdoteii, vi. 187), ' Saturday November 25th,' as the day of the Oath; but, no doubt, the later inquirers, Preuss (i. 56) and ethers, have found him wrong in this small instance. ^ Preuss, i. 56. 8 CROWN-PRINCE RETRIEVED. Bookvill. 19th Nov. 1730, 'I,' — 'by my disobedience as Theiro' (Youit^) 'subject and soldier, ' not less than by my undutifulness as Theiiv Son, given occasion to ' a just wrath and aversion against me. With llie All-obedientcst re- ' spect I submit myself wholly to the grace of my most All-gracious ' Father; and beg him, Most Ail-graciously to pardon me; as it is not ' so much the withdrawal of my liberty in a sad arrest {malhcureusen ' Ai'rest), as my own thoughts of the fault I have committetl, that have ' brought me to reason : Who, with all-obedientest respect and sub- ' mission, continue till my end, ' My AU-graciousest King's and Father's faithfully obedientest ' Servant and Son, 'Friedrich.'' This new House of Friedrich's in the little Town of Ctis- trin, he finds arranged for him on rigorously thrifty principles, yet as a real Household of his own ; and even in the form of a Court, with Hofmarschall, Kammerjunkers, and the other adjuncts ; — Court reduced to its simplest expression, as the French say, and probably the cheapest that was ever set up. Hofmarschall (Court-Marshal) is one Wolden, a civilian Official here. The Kammerjunkers are Rohwedel and Natzmer; Natz- mer Junior, son of a distinguished Feldmarschall : ' a good- hearted but foolish forward young fellow,' says Wilhelmina ; ' the failure of a coxcomb {petit-maltre uianqtte)' For example, once, strolling about in a solemn Kaiser's Soiree in Vienna, he found in some quiet corner the young Duke of Lorraine, Franz, who it is thought will be the divine Maria Theresa's husband, and Kaiser himself one day. Foolish Natzmer found this noble young gentleman in a remote corner of the Soiree ; went up, nothing loath, to speak graciosities and insipidities to him : the noble young gentleman yawned, as was too natu- ral, a wide long yawn ; and in an insipid familiar manner, foolish Natzmer (Wilhelmina and the Berlin circles know it) put his finger into the noble young gentleman's mouth, and insipidly wagged it there. "Sir, you seem to forget where you arc !" said the noble young gentleman ; and closing his mouth with emphasis, turned away ; but happily took no far- ther notice.*^ This is all we yet know of the history of Natz- mer, whose heedless ways and slapdash speculations, tinted with natural ingenuity and goodhumour, are not unattractive to the Prince. 7 I'rcuss, i. c;6, 57 ; .ind Anonymous, Friedrichs dei GrosstH iirK^e an ieinen I' titer ( IJcrlin, Poscn uud Uromberg, 1838), p. 3. " Wilhclminu, i. 310. Chap. ir. PRINCE TOREPENT AND NOT PERISH. 9 19th Nov. 1730. Hofmarschall and these two Kammerjunkers are of the lawyer species ; men intended for Official business, in which the Prince himself is now to be occupied. The Prince has four lackeys, two pages, one valet. He ' wears his sword, but has no sword-tash {porie-cpce),' much less an officer's uni- form : a mere Prince put upon his good behaviour again ; not yet a soldier of the Prussiaji Army, only hoping to become so again. He wears a light-gray dress, ' hechtgraiier (pike-gray) frock with narrow silver cordings ;' and must recover his uni- form, by proving himself gradually a new man. For there is, along with the new household, a new employ- ment laid out for him in Ciistrin ; and it shall be seen what figure he makes in that, first of all. He is to sit in the Do- incinen-Kamtner or Government Board here, as youngest Rath ; no other career permitted. Let him learn Economics and the way of managing Domain Lands (a very principal item of the royal revenues in this Country) : humble work, but useful ; which he had better see well how he will do. Two elder Raths are appointed to instruct him in the Economic Sciences and Practices, if he show faculty and diligence ; — which in fact he turns out to do, in a superior degree, having every motive to try. This kind of life lasted with him for the next fifteen months, all through the year 1731 and farther; and must have been a very singular, and was probably a highly instructive year to him, not in the Domain Sciences alone. He is left wholly to himself. All his fellow-creatures, as it were, are watching him. Hundred-eyed Argus, or the Ear of Dionysius, that is to say, Tobacco-Parliament with its spies and reporters, — no stirring of his finger can escape it here. He has much suspicion to encounter : Papa looking always sadly askance, sadly incredulous, upon him. He is in correspondence with Grumkow ; takes much advice from Grumkow (our prompter- general, president in the Dionysius'-Ear, and not an ill-wisher farther) ; professes much thankfulness to Grumkow, now and henceforth. Thank you for flinging me out of the six-story window, and catching me by the coatskirts ! — Left altogether to himself, as we said ; has in the whole Universe nothing that will save him but his own good sense, his own power of discovering what is what, and of doing what will be behovefui therein. lo CROWN-PRINCE RETRIEVED. p.ookVilT. Feb. 1 73 1. He is to quit his French literatures and pernicious prac- tices, one and all. His very flute, most innocent " Princess," as he used to call his flute in old days, is denied him ever since he came to Ciistrin ; — but by degrees he privately gets her back, and consorts much with her ; wails forth, in beau- tiful adagios, emotions for which there is no other utterance at pi-esent. He has liberty of Ciistrin and the neighbourhood ; out of Ciistrin he is not to lodge, any night, without leave had of the Commandant. Let him walk warily ; and in good ear- nest study to become a new creature, useful for something in the Domain Sciences and otherwise. CHAPTER III. WILHELMINA IS TO WED THE PRINCE OF BAIREUTH. Crown-Prince Friedrich being settled so far, his Ma- jesty takes up the case of Wilhelmina, the other ravelled skein lying on hand. Wilhelmina has been prisoner in her Apart- ment at Berlin all this while : it is proper Wilhelmina be dis- posed of ; either in wedlock, filially obedient to the royal mind ; or in. some much sterner way, 'within four walls,' it is whis- pered, if disobedient. Poor Wilhelmina never thought of disobeying her parents : only, which of them to obey ? King looks towards the Prince of Baireuth again, agreed on before those hurly-burlies now past ; Queen looks far otherwards. Queen Sophie still des- perately believes in the English match for Wilhelmina ; and has subterranean correspondences with that Court ; refusing to see that the negotiation is extinct there. Grumkow him- self, so over-victorious in his late task, is now heeling towards England ; ' sincere in his wish to be well with us,' thinks Dick- ens : Grumkow solaces her Majesty with delusive hopes in the English quarter. "Be firm, child; trust in my management; " only swear to me, on your eternal salvation, that never, on " any compulsion, will you marry another than the Prince of " Wales ; — give me that oath !"i Such was Queen Sophie's last proposal to Wilhelmina, — night of the 27th of January 1 73 1, as is computable, — her Majesty to leave for Potsdam on the morrow. They wept much together that night, but ' Wilhelmina, I. 3t.(. Chap. III. WILHELMINA TO WED BAIREUTH. ii Feb. 1 731. Wilhelmina dextrously evaded the oath, on a rehgious ground. Prince of Baireuth, whom Papa may like or may not hke, has never yet personally made appearance : who or what will make appearance, or how things can or will turn, except a bad road, is terribly a mystery to Wilhelmina. What with chagrin and confinement, what with bad diet (for the very diet is bad, quality and quantity alike unspeak- able), Wilhelmina sees herself ' reduced to a skeleton ;' no company but her faithful Sonsfeld, no employment but her Books and Music ; — struggles, however, still to keep heart. One day, it is in February 173 1, as I compute, they are sitting, her Sonsfeld and she, at their sad mess of so-called dinner, in their i-emote upper story of the Berlin Schloss, tramp of sentries the one thing audible ; and were ' looking mournfully at one ' another, with nothing to eat but a soup of salt and water, and ' a ragout of old bones full of hairs and slopperies,' — nothing else ; that was its real quality, whatever fine name they might give it, says the vehement Princess, — ' we heard a sharp tap- ' ping at the window ; and started up in surprise, to see what ' it could be. It was a raven, carrying in its beak a bit of ' bread, which it left on the window-sill, and flew away.'- ' Tears came into our eyes at this adventure.' Are we be- come as Hebrew Elijahs, then ; so that the wild ravens have to bring us food ? Truth is, there was nothing miraculous, as Wilhelmina found by and by. It was a tame raven, — not the soul of old George I., which lives at Isleworth on good pensions ; but the pet raven of a certain Margravine, which lost its way among the intricate roofs here. But the incident was touching. " Well," exclaimed Wilhelmina, " in the Roman Histories I am " now reading, it is often said those creatures betoken good " luck." All Berlin, such the appetite for gossip, and such the famine of it in Berlin at present, talked of this minute event : and the French Colony, — old Protestant Colony, practical con- siderate people, — were so struck by it, they brought baskets of comfortable things to us, and left them daily, as if by accident, on some neutral ground, where the maid could pick them up, sentries refusing to see unless compelled. Which fine proced- ure has attached Wilhelmina to the French nation ever since, as a dextrous useful people, and has given her a disposition to help them where she could. 2 Wilhelmina, i. 316. 12 CROWN-PRINCE RETRIEVED. Book viir. iilh May 1731. The omen of the raven did not at once bring good luck : however, it did chance to be the turning-point, solstice oi this long Greenland winter ; after v/hich, amid storms and alarms, daylight came steadily nearer. Storms and alarms : for there came rumours of quarrels out at Potsdam, quarrels on the old score between the Royal Spouses there ; and frightful messages, through one Eversmann, an insolent royal lackey, about wed- ding Weissenfels, about imprisonment for life and other hard things ; through all which Wilhelmina studied to keep her poor head steady, and answer with dignity yet discreetly. On the other hand, her Sisters are permitted to visit her, and percept- ible assuagements come. At length, on the nth of May, there came solemn Deputation, Borck, Grumkow, Thulmeyer in it, old real friends and pi"etended new; which set poor Wilhel- mina wringing her hands (having had a Letter from Mamma overnight) ; but did bring about a solution. It was Friday i ith of May ; a day of crisis in Wilhelmina's history ; Queen com- manding one thing. King another, and the hour of decision come. Entering, announcing them.selves, with dreadful solemnity, these gentlemen, Grumkow the spokesman, in soft phrase, but with strict clearness, made it apparent to her. That marry she must, — the Hereditary Prince of Baireuth, — and without the consent of both her parents, which was unattainable at present, but peremptorily under the command of one of them, whose vote was the supreme. Do this (or even say that you will do it, whisper some of the v/ell-affected), his Majesty's paternal favour will return upon you like pent waters ; — and the Ouecn will surely reconcile herself (or perhaps turn it all her own way yet ! whisper the well-affected). Refuse to do it, her Majesty, your Royal Brother, you yourself Royal Highness, God only knows what the unheard-of issue will be for you all! Do it, let us advise you : you must, you must ! — Wilhelmina wrung her hands ; ran distractedly to and fro ; the well-affected whis- pering to her, the others ' conversing at a window.' At length she did it. Will marry whom her all-gracious Papa appoints ; never wished or meant the least disobedience ; hopes, beyond all things, his paternal love will now return, and make every- body blessed ; — andO, reconcile Mamma to me, ye well-afifectcd ! adds she. — Bravissimo ! answer they : her Majesty, for certain, will reconcile herself; Crown-Prince get back from Custrin, and all will be well.'^ •• Wilhelmina, i. 227-333. Chap. III. WILHELMINA TO WED BAIREUTH. 13 mil May 1731. Friedrich Wilhelm was overjoyed ; Oucen Sophie Dorothee v/as in despair. With his Majesty, who ' wept' hl^e a paternal Ijcar, on reembracing Wilhehiiina the obedient some days lience, it became a settled point, and was indicated to Wilhel- mina as such, That the Crown-Prince would, on her actual wed- ding, probably get back from Ciistrin. But her Majesty's re- concilement, — this was very slow to follow. Her Majesty was still in flames of ire at their next interview ; and poor Wilhel- niina fainted, on approaching to kiss her hand. " Disgraced, vanquished, and my enemies triumphing !" said her Majesty ; and vented her wrath on Wilhelmina ; and fell ill (so soon as there was leisure), ill, like to die, and said, "Why pretend to weep, when it is you that have killed me !" — and indeed was altogether hard, bitter, upon the poor Princess ; a chief sorrow to her in these trying months. Can there be such wrath in celestial minds, venting itself so unreasonably ? — At present there is no leisure for illness ; grand visitors in quantity have come and are coming ; and the Court is brilliant exceedingly; — his Majesty blazing out into the due magnifi- cence, which was very great on this occasion, domestic mat- ters looking up with him again. The Serenities of Brunswick are here, young and old ; much liked by Friedrich Wilhelm ; and almost reckoned family people, — ever since their Eldest Son was affianced to the Princess Charlotte here, last visit they made. To Princess Charlotte, Wilhclmina's second junior, — mischievous, coquettish creature she, though very pretty and insinuating, who seems to think her Intended rather a phleg- matic young gentleman, as Wilhelmina gradually discovers. Then there is old Duke Eberhard Ludwig, of Wiirtemberg, whom we saw at Ludwigsburg last year, in an intricate condi- tion with his female world and otherwise, he too announces himself, — according to promise then given. Old Duke Eber- hard Ludwig comes, stays three weeks in great splendour of welcome ; — poor old gentleman, his one son is now dead ; and things are getting earnest with him. On his return home, this time, he finds, according to order, the foul witch Griivenitz duly cleared away; reinstates his injured Duchess, with the due feelings, better late than never ; and dies in a year or two, still childless. — These are among the hiqh guests at Berlin ; and there arc 14 CROWN-PRINCE RETRIEVED. r,>or.viii. 27lh May 1731. plenty of others whom we do not name. Magnificent dining; with ' six-and-twenty blackamoors,' high-coloured creatures, marching up the grand staircase, round the table, round it, and then down again, melodious, doing 'janizaiy music,' if you hap- pen to prefer that kind ; — trained creatures these blackamoors, all got when boys, and set to cymbaUing and fifing betimes, adds my authority.^ Dining, boar-hunting (if the boar be hunt- able), especially reviewing, fail not in those fine summer days. One evening, it is Sunday 27th of May, latish, while the high guests, with Queen and Wilhelmina, are just passing in to supper (King's Majesty having 'gone to bed at seven,' to be well astir for the review tomorrow), a sound of wheels is heard in the court. Modest travelling-equipage rolls up into the inner court ; to the foot of the grand staircase there, whither only Princes come : — who can it be ? The Queen sends to in- quire. Heavens, it is the Hereditary Prince of Baireuth ! • Me- ' dusa's Head never produced such effect as did this bit of ' news : Queen sat petrified ; and I,' by reflex, was petrified too ! Wilhelmina passed the miserablest night, no wink of sleep; and felt quite ill in the morning ; — in dread, too, of Papa's rough jests, — and wretched enough. She had begged much, last night, to be excused from the review. But that could not be : "I must go," said the Queen after reflection, "and you with me." Which they did ; — and diversified the pomp and cir- cumstance of mock-war bj'- a small unexpected scene. Queen, Princess and the proper Dames had, by his Ma- jesty's order, to pass before the line : Princess in much trouble, 'with three caps huddled on me, to conceal myself,' poor soul. Margraf of Schvv'cdt, at the head of his regiment, 'looked swollen with rage,' high hopes gone in this manner ; — and saluted us _with eyes turned away. As for his Mother, the Dessau Mar- gravine in high colours, she was 'blue in the face' all day. Lines passed, and salutations done, her Majesty and Dames withdrew to the safe distance, to look on : — Such a show, for pomp and circumstance, Wilhelmina owns, as could not be equalled in the world. Such wheeling, rhythmic coalescing and unfolding ; accurate as clockwork, far and wide ; swift big column here, hitting swift big column there, at the appointed place and moment ; with their vollcyings and trumpetings, bright uniforms and streamers and field-music, — in equipment ■' Fassmann, p. 726, &c. Chap.iii. WILHELMINA TO WED BAIREUTPI. 15 28th May 1731. and manoeuvre perfect all, to the meanest drummer or black kettledrummer : — supreme drill-sergeant playing on the thing, as on his huge piano, several square miles in area ! Comes of the Old Dessauer, all this ; of the " equal step;" of the abstruse meditations upon tactics, in that rough head of his. Very pretty- indeed. — But in the mean while an Official steps up ; cap in hand, approaches the Queen's carriage ; says. He is ordered to introduce his Highness the Prince of Baireuth. Prince comes up accordingly; a personable young fellow; intelligent-look- ing, self-possessed ; makes obeisance to her Majesty, who ans- wers in frosty politeness ; and — and Wilhelmina, faint, fast- ing, sleepless all night, fairly falls aswoon. Could not be helped : and the whole world saw it ; and Guy Dickens and the Diplo- matists wrote home about it, and there rose rumour and gossip enough !^ But that was the naked truth of it : hot weather, agitation, want of sleep, want of food ; not aversion to the He- reditary Prince, nothing of that. Rather the contrary, indeed ; and, on better acquaintance, much the contraiy. For he proved a very rational, honour- able and eligible young Prince : modest, honest, with abund- ance of sense and spirit ; kind too and good, hot temper well kept, temper hot not harsh ; quietly holds his own in all circles ; good discourse in him, too, and sharp repartee if requisite, — though he stammei'ed somewhat in speaking. Submissive Wil- helmina feels that one might easily have had a worse husband. What glories for you in England ! the Queen used to say to her in old times : " He is a Prince, that Frederick, who has a " good heart, and whose genius is very small. Rather ugly " than handsome ; slightly out of shape even {nn pen contre- " fait). But provided you have the complaisance to suffer his " debaucheries, you will quite govern him ; and you will be " more King than he, when once his Father is dead. Only " see what a part you will play ! It will be you that decide " on the weal or woe of Europe, and give law to the Nation,"" — in a manner ! Which Wilhelmina did not think a celestial prospect even then. Who knows but, of all the offers she had, ' four' or three ' crowned heads' among them, this final modest honest one may be intrinsically the best 1 Take your portion, if inevitable, and be thankful ! — 5 Dickens, of 2d June 1731 (in palhetic terms); Wilhelmina, i. 341 (without pathos). ° Wilhelmina, i. 143. i6 CROWN-PRINCE RETRIEVED. Bockvili. 3d June 1731. The Betrothal follows in about a week : Sunday' 3d June 1731 ; with great magnificence, in presence of the high guests and all the world : and Wilhelmina is the affianced Bride of Friedrich of Baireuth : — and that enormous Double-Marriage Tragicomedy, of Much Ado about Nothing, is at last ended. Courage, friends ; all things do end ! — The high guests hereupon go their ways again ; and the Court of Berlin, one cannot but suppose, collapses, as after a great effort finished. Do not Friedrich Wilhelm and innumer- able persons, — the readers and the writer ot this History in- cluded, — feel a stone rolled off their hearts ? — It is now, and not till now, that Queen Sophie falls sick, and like to die ; and reproaches Wilhelmina with killing her. Friedrich Wilhelm hopes confidently, not ; waits out at Potsdam, for a few days, till this killing danger pass ; then departs, with double impe- tuosity, for Preussen, and dispatch of Public Business ; such a mountain of Domestic Business being victoriously got under. Poor King, his life, this long while, has been a series of earthquakes and titanic convulsions. Narrow miss he has had, of pulling down his house about his ears, and burying self, son, wife, family and fortunes, under the ruin-heap, — a monument to remote posterity. Never was such an enchanted dance, of well-intentioned Royal Bear with poetic temperament, piped to by two black-artists, for the Kaiser's and Pragmatic Sanc- tion's sake ! Let Tobacco-Parliament also rejoice ; for truly the play was growing dangerous, of late. King and Parlia- ment, we may suppose, return to Public Business with double vigour. CHAPTER IV. CRIMINAL JUSTICE IN PREUSSEN AND ELSEWHERE. Not that his Majesty, while at the deepest in domestic in- tricacies, ever neglects Public Business. This very summer he is raising Hussar Squadrons ; bent to introduce the Hussar kind of soldiery into his Army ; — a good deal of horsebreaking and new sabre-exercise needed for that object.' The affairs of the Reich have at no moment been out of his eye; glad to seethe Kaiser edging round to the Sea- Powers again, and ' Fassm.ann, pp. ^ij, 418. Chap. IV. CRIMINAL JUSTICE IN PREUSSEN. 17 June 1731. things coming into their old posture, in spite of that sad Treaty of Seville. Nay, for the last two years, while the domestic volcanos were at their worst, his Majesty has been extensively dealing with a new question which has risen, that o{\.\^q. Salzburg Pro- testants j concerning which we shall hear more anon. Far and wide, in the Diets and elsewhere, he has been diligently, piously and with solid judgment, handling this question of the poor Salzburgers; and has even stored up moneys in intended so- lace of them (for he foresees what the end will be) ; — moneys which, it appears about this time, a certain Official over in Preussen has been peculating! In the end of June, his Ma- jesty sets off to Preussen on the usual Inspection Tour; which we should not mention, were it not in regard to that same Official, and to something very rhadamanthine and particular which befell him; significant of what his Majesty can do in the way of prompt justice. Case of Schhibhut. The Kdnigsberg Domain -Board {Kriegs- tind Dovidnen- Kajiuner) had fallen awry, in various points, of late ; several things known to be out-at-elbows in that Country ; the Kam- mer Raths evidently lax at their post ; for which reason they have been sharply questioned, and shaken by the collar, so to speak. Nay there is one Rath, a so-called Nobleman of those parts, by name Schlubhut, who has been found actually de- faulting ; peculating from that pious hoard intended for the Salzburgers : he is proved, and confesses, to have put into his own scandalous purse no less than 11,000 thalers, some say 30,000 (almost 5,000/.), which belonged to the Pubhc Trea- sury and the Salzburg Protestants ! These things, especially this latter unheard-of Schlubhut thing, the Supreme Court at Berlin {Crifiiinal -Collegium) have been sitting on, for some time ; and, in regard to Schlubhut, they have brought out a result, which Friedrich Wilhelm not a little admires at. Schlub- hut clearly guilty of the defalcation, say they ; but he has moneys, landed properties : let him refund, principal and in- terest ; and have, say, three or four years' imprisonment, by way of memento. " Years' imprisonment ? Refund ? Is theft in the highest quarters a thing to be let-off for refunding ?" VOL, III. c 1 8 CROWN-PRINCE RETRIEVED. BookViil. July 1731. growls his Majesty ; and will not confirm this sentence of his Criminal-Collegium ; but leaves it till he get to the spot, and see with his own eyes. Schlubhut, in arrest or mild confine- ment all this while, ought to be bethinking himself more than he is ! Once on the spot, judge if the Konigsberg Domain-Kam- mer had not a stiff muster to pass ; especially if Schlubhut's drill-exercise was gentle ! Schlubhut, summoned to private interview with his Majesty, carries his head higher than could be looked for : Is very sorry ; knows not how it happened ; meant always to refund ; will refund, to the last penny, and make all good. — " Refund .'' Does He {Er) know what steal- ing means, then ? How the commonest convicted private thief finds the gallows his portion ; much more a public magistrate convicted of theft? Is He aware that He, in a very especial manner, deserves hanging, then ?" — Schlubhut looks offended dignity; conscious of rank, if also of quasi -theft : " Es ist nicht Manier (it is not the polite thing) to hang a Prussian Nobleman on those light terms !" answers Schlubhut, high- mannered at the wrong time : "I can and will pay the money back !" — Noble-vsxTkw ? Money back ? " I will none of His scoundrelly money." To strait Prison with this Sdnirke / — And thither he goes accordingly : unhappiest of mortals ; to be conscious of rank, not at the right place, when about to steal the money, but at the wrong, when answering to Rhadaman- thus on it ! And there, sure enough, Schlubhut lies, in his prison on the Schlosspiaiz, or Castle Square, of Konigsberg, all night ; and hears, close by Xht' Doindnen-Kanuner, which is in the same Square, Do/nd/icn-Ka}n}ner\\\\exe.\\\s Office used to be, a terrible sound of carpentering go on ; — unhappiest of Prus- sian Noblemen. And in the morning, see, a high gallows built • close in upon the Domain- Kammer, looking into the ver '' windows of it; — and there, sure enough, the unfortuna' Schlubhut dies the thief's death, few hours hence, speaking thinking what, no man reports to me. Death was certain f( , him ; inevitable as fate. And so he vibrates there, admoni tory to the other Raths for days, — some say for weeks, — till I by humble petition they got the gallows removed. The stumps) of it, sawed close by the stones, were long after visible in that Schlossplatz of Konigsberg. Here is prompt justice with a Chap. IV. CRIMINAL JUSTICE IN PREUSSEN. 19 July 1731. witness ! Did readers ever hear of such a thing ? There is no doubt about the fact,^ though in all Prussian Books it is loosely smeared over, without the least precision of detail ; and it was not till after long searching that I could so much as get it dated : July 1731, while Friedrich Crown-Prince is still in eclipse at Ciistrin, and some six weeks after Wilhelmina's be- trothal. And here furthermore, direct from the then Schlub- hut precincts, is a stray Note, meteorological chiefly ; but worth picking up, since it is authentic. ' Wehlau,' we observe, is on the road homewards again, — on our return from utter- most Memel, — a day's journey hitherwards of that place, half a day's thitherwards of Konigsberg : ' Tuesday loth J-idy 1731. King dining with General Dockum at ' Wehlau,' — where he had been again reviewing, for about forty hours, all manner of regiments brought to rendezvous there for the purpose, poor ' General Katte with his regiment' among them ; — King at dinner with General Dockum after all that, ' took the resolution to be off to ' Konigsberg ; and arrived here at the stroke of midnight, in a deluge ' of rain.' This brings us within a day, or two days, of Schlubhut's death. Terrible 'combat of Bisons {Uri, or Aiierochsen, with such ' manes, such heads), of two wild Bisons against six wild Bears, ' then ensued ; and the Schlubhut human tragedy ; I know notin what sequence, — rather conjecture the Schlubhut had gone Jirst. Pillau, road to Dant- zig, on the narrow strip between the Frische Haf and Baltic, is the next stage homewards ; at Pillau, General Finkenstein (excellent old Tutor of the Crown-Prince) is Commandant, and expects his rapid Alajesty, day and hour given, to me not known. Majesty goes in three carriages ; Old Dessauer, Grumkow, Seckendorf, Ginkel are among his suite; weather still veiy electric : ' At Fischhausen, half \vay to Pillau, Majesty had a bout of elk- ' hunting ; killed sixty elks' (Melton -Mowbray may consider it), — ' creatures of the deer sort, nimble as roes, but strong as bulls, and ' four palms higher than the biggest horse, — to the astonishment ol ' Seckendorf, Ginkel and the strangers there. Plalf-an-hour short oi Pillau, furious electr.city again; thunderbolt shivered an oak-tree - "ifteen yards from Majesty's carriage. And at Pillau itself, the Bat- t ilion in Garrison there, drawn-out in arms, by Count Finkenstein, to 1 eceive his Majesty' (rain over by this time, we can hope), 'had sud- ^ jenly to rush forward and take new ground ; Frische Haf, on some pressure from the elements, having suddenly gushed out, two hundred paces beyond its old watermark in that place.'' 2 Benekendorf (Anonymous), Karakterzuge aiis dem Lehen ICum's' Frkdrich Vilhebn I. (Berlin, 1788), vii. 15-20 ; Forster (ii. 268), &c. &c. 3 See Mauvillon, ii. 293-297 ;— correcting by Fassniann, p. 422. 20 CROWN-PRINCE RETRIEVED. Book vill. 1731- Pillau, Fischhaiisen, — this is where the excellent old Adal- bert stamped the earth with his life ' in the shape of a crucifix' eight hundred years ago : and these are the new phenomena there ! — The General Dockum, Colonel of Dragoons, whom his Majesty dined with at Wehlau, got his death not many months after. One of Dockum's Dragoon Lieutenants felt in- sulted at something, and demanded his discharge : discharge given, he challenged Dockum, duel of pistols, and shot him dead.^ Nothing more to be said of Dockum, nor of that Lieu- tenant, in military annals. Case of the Criminal- Collegium itself. And thus was the error of the Criminal-Collegium rectified in re Schlubhut. For it is not in name only, but in fact, that this Sovereign is Supreme Judge, and bears the sword in God's stead, — interfering now and then, when need is, in this terrible manner. In the same dim authentic Benekendorf (himself a member of the Criminal-Collegium in later times), and from him in all the Books, is recorded another interference some- what in the comic vein ; which also we may give. Undisputed fact, again totally without precision or details ; not even date- able, except that, on study, we perceive it may have been be- fore thisSchlubhul's execution, and after the Criminal-Collegium had committed their error about him, — must have been while this of Schlubhut was still vividly in mind. Here is the un- precise but indubitable fact, as the Prussian Dryasdust has left us his smear of it : ' One morning early' (might be before Schlubhut was hanged, and while only sentence of imprisonment and restitu- tion lay on him), General Graf von Donhof, Colonel of a Mus- keteer regiment, favourite old soldier, — who did vote on the mild side in that Court-Martial on the Crown-Prince lately ; but I hope has been forgiven by his Majesty, being much esteemed by him these long years past ; — this Donhof, early one morning, calls upon the King, with a grimly lamenting air. " What is wrong, Hcrr General ?" — "Your Majesty, my best musketeer, an excellent soldier, and of good inches, fell into a mistake lately, — bad company getting round the poor fellow ; they, he among them, slipt into a house and stole some- •> 7th Aoiil iTii (Militair-Lcxikon, i. 365). Chap. IV. CRIMINAL JUSTICE IN PREUSSEN. 21 1731- thing ; trifle and without violence: pay is but three half-pence, your Majesty, and the Devil, tempts men ! Well, the Criminal- Collegium have condemned him to be hanged ; an excellent soldier and of good inches, for that one fault. Nobleman Schlubhut was 'to make restitution,' they decreed: that was their decree on Schlubhut, one of their own set ; and this poor soldier, six feet three, your Majesty, is to dance on the top of nothing for a three-halfpenny matter !" — So would Donhof represent the thing, — ' fact being,' says my Dryasdust, ' it was ' a case of housebreaking with theft to the value of 6,000 tlia- ' lers, and this musketeer the I'ingleader !' — Well ; but was Schlubhut sentenced to hanging ? Do you keep two weights and two measures, in that Criminal-Collegium of yours, then ? Friedrich Wilhelm feels this sad contrast very much ; the more, as the soldier is his own chattel withal, and of superla- tive inches : Friedrich Wilhelm flames-up into wrath ; sends off swift messengers to bring these Judges, one and all, instantly into his presence. The Judges are still in their dressing-gowns, shaving, breakfasting ; they make what haste they can. So soon as the first three or four are reported to be in the ante- room, Friedrich Wilhelm, in extreme impatience, has them called in ; starts discoursing with them upon the two weights and two measures. Apologies, subterfuges do but provoke him farther ; it is not long till he starts up, growling terribly : " Ilir Schurken (Ye Scoundrels), how could you ?" and smites down upon the crowns of them with the Royal Cudgel itself. Fancy the hurry-scurry, the unforensic attitudes and pleadings ! Royal Cudgel rains blows, right and left : blood is drawn, crowns cracked, crowns nearly broken ; and ' several Judges lost a few teeth, and had their noses battered,' before they could get out. The second relay meeting them in this dilapidated state, on the staircases, dashed home again without the honour of a Royal interview.^ Let them learn to keep one balance, and one set of weights, in their Law-Court henceforth. — This is an actual scene, of date Berlin 1731 or thereby; unusual in the annals of Themis. Of which no constitutional country can hope to see the fellow, were the need never so pressing. — I wish his Majesty had been a thought more equal, when he was so rhadamanthine ! Schlubhut he hanged, Schlubhut being only Schlubhut's chattel ; this musketeer, his Majesty's own * Benekendorf, vii. 33 ; Forster, ii. 270. 22 CROWN-PRINCE RETRIEVED. Bookvrii. 1731- chattel, he did not hang, but set him shouldering arms again, after some preliminary dusting ! — His Majesty was always excessively severe on defalcations ; any Chancellor with his Exchequer-bills gone wrong, would have fared ill in that country. One Treasury dignitary, named Wilke (who had 'dealt in tall recruits,' as a kind of bye-trade, and played foul in some slight measure), the King was clear for hanging ; his poor Wife galloped to Potsdam, shrieking mercy ; upon which Friedrich Wilhelm had him whipt by the hangman, and stuck for life into Spandau. Still more tra- gical was poor Hesse's case. Hesse, some domain Rath out at Konigsberg, concerned with moneys, was found with account- books in a state of confusion, and several thousands short, when the outcome was cleared up. What has become of these thousands, Sir? Poor old Hesse could not tell : " God is my witness, no penny of them ever stuck to me," asseverated poor old Hesse; "but where they are — ? My account-books are in such a state ; — alas, and my poor old memory is not what it was !" They brought him to Berlin ; in the end they actu- ally hanged the poor old soul ; — and then afterwards in his dusty lumber-rooms, hidden in pots, stuffed into this nook and that, most or all of the money was found \^ Date and docu- ment exist for all these cases, though my Dryasdust gives none ; and the cases are indubitable ; very rhadamanthine indeed., The soft quality of mercy, — ah, yes, it is beautiful and blessed, when permissible (though thrice-accursed, when not) : but it is on the hard quality of justice, first of all, that Empires are built up, and beneficent and lasting things become achiev- able to mankind, in this world ! — Skipper JenMns in the Gulf of Florida. A couple of weeks before Schlubhut's death, the English Newspapers are somewhat astir, — in the way of narrative merely, as yet. Ship Rebecca, Captain Robert Jenkins Mas- ter, has arrived in the Port of London, with a strange story in her logbook. Of which, after due sifting, this is accurately the substance : 'London, 23^-27//; fuHe 1731. Captain Jenkins left this Port with ' the Rebecca, several months ago; sailed to Jamaica, for a cargo of •■ Ffirster (ii. 269), &c. &c. Chap. IV. CRIMINAL JUSTICE IN PREUSSEN. 23 731- sugar. He took in his cargo at Jamaica ; put to sea again, 5th April 1 73 1, and proceeded on the voyage homewards; with indifferent winds for the first fortnight. April 20th, with no wind or none that would suit, he was hanging about in the entrance of the Gulf of Florida, not far from the Havana,' — almost too near it, I should think; but these baffling winds! — 'not far from the Havana, when a Spanish Guarda-Costa hove in sight; came down on Jenkins, and furiously boarded him: "Scoundrel, what do j'«i?< want; contraband- ing in these seas? Jamaica, say you? Sugar? Likely! Let us see your logwood, hides, Spanish pieces-of-eightl" And broke in upon Jenkins, ship and person, in a most extraordinary manner. Tore-up his hatches ; plunged down, seeking logwood, hides, pieces-of-eight ; found none, — not the least trace of contraband on board of Jenkins. They brought up his quadrants, sextants, however ; likewise his stock of tallow-candles : they shook and rummaged him, and all things, for pieces-of-eight; furiously advised him, cutlass in hand, to confess guilt. They slashed the head of Jenkins, his left ear almost off. Order had been given, " Scalp him!" — but as he had no hair, they omitted that ; merely brought away the wig, and slashed : — still no confession, nor any pieces-of-eight. They hung him up to the yardarm, — actual neck -halter, but it seems to have been tarry, and did not run : — still no confession. They hoisted him higher, tied his cabin-boy to his feet ; neclyhalter then became awfully stringent upon Jenkins ; had not the cabin-boy (without head to speak of) slipt through, noose be- ing tarry; which was a sensible relief to Jenkins. Before very death, they lowered Jenkins, "Confess, scoundrel, then!" Scoundrel could not confess; spoke of "British Majesty's flag, peaceable English sub- ject on the high seas. " — " British Majesty ; high seas !" answered they, and again hoisted. Thrice over they tried Jenkins in this manner at the yardarm, once with cabin-boy at his feet : never had man such a day, outrageous whiskerando cutthroats tossing him about, his poor Rebecca and him, at such rate ! Sun getting low, and not the least trace of contraband found, they made a last assault on Jenkins ; clutched the bloody slit ear of him; tore it mercilessly off; flung it in his face, " Carry that to your King, and tell him of it !" Then M-ent their way; taking Jenkins's tallow-candles, and the best of his sextants with them ; so that he could hardly work his passage home again, for want of latitudes; — and has lost in goods 11 2/., not to speak of his ear. Strictly true all this; ship's company, if required, will testify on their oath.'' These surely are singular facts ; calculated to awaken a maritime public careful of its honour. Which they did, — after about eight years, as the reader will see ! For the present, there are growlings in the coffeehouses ; and, ' Thursday 2%th 7 Daily yoiifftal {and the other London Newspapers), i2th-i7th June(o.s. ) 1731. Co.xc's t'Vaipole, i. 579, 560 (indistinct, and needing correction). 24 CROWN-PRINCE RETRIEVED. Bookviii. ' Jiine,^ say the Newspapers, ' This day Captain Jenkins with ' his Owners,' ear in his pocket, I hope, ' went out to Hamp- * ton Court to lay the matter before his Grace of Newcastle :' " Please your Grace, it is hardly three months since the illus- trious Treaty of Vienna was signed ; Dutch and we leading-in the Termagant of Spain, and nothing but halcyon weather to be looked for on that side !" Grace of Newcastle, anxious to avoid trouble with Spain, answers I can only fancy what ; and nothing was done upon Jenkins and his ear f — may ' keep it in cotton,' if he like ; shall have 'a better ship' for some so- lacement. This is the first emergence of Jenkins and his ear upon negligent mankind. He and it will marvellously reemerge, one day! — Baby Carlos gets his Apanage. But in regard to that Treaty of Vienna, seventh and last of the travail-throes for Babj' Carlos's Apanage, let the too ob- livious reader accept the following Extract, to keep him on a level with Public ' Events,' as they are pleased to denominate themselves : 'By that dreadful Treaty of Seville, Cardinal Fleury and the Spaniards should have joined with England, and coerced the Kaiser zi et arniis to admit Spanish Garrisons' (instead of neutral) ' into Parma and Pia- cenza, and so secure Baby Carlos his heritage there, which all Nature was in travail till he got. "War in Italy to a certainty!" said all the Newspapers, after Seville: and Crown-Prince Friedrich, we saw, was running off to have a stroke in said War ; — inevitable, as the Kaiser still obstinately refused. And the English, and great George their King, were ready. Nevertheless, no War came. Old Fleury, not wanting war, wanting only to fish-out something useful for himself, — Lorraine how welcome, and indeed the smallest contributions are wel- come! — Old Fleury manoeuvered, hung back ; till the Spaniards and Termagant Elizabeth lost all patience, and the very English were weary, and getting suspicious. Whereupon the Kaiser edged round to the Sea-Powers again, or they to him ; and comfortable As-you-ivere was got accomplished : much to the joy of Fnedrich Wilhelm and others. Here are some of the dates to these sublime phenomena : ^ March i6tk, ij'ii, Treaty of Vienna, England and the Kaiser coalescing again into comfortable A s-you-wcre. Treaty done by Ro- binson' (Sir Thomas, ultimately Earl of Grantham, whom we shall " 'The .Spaniards own they did a witty thing, Who cropt our ears, and sent them to the King.' Poi'E (date not given me). Chap. IV. CRIMINAL JUSTICE IN PREUSSEN. 25 1731- often hear of in time coming) ; ' was confirmed and enlarged by a kind of 'second edition, 22d July 1731; Dutch joining, Spain itself acceding, ' and all being now right. Which could hardly have been expected. ' For before the first edition of that Treaty, and while Robinson at ' Vienna was still labouring like Hercules in it, — the poor Duke of 'Parma died. Died; and no vestige of a "Spanish Garrison" yet ' there, to induct Baby Carlos according to old bargain. On the con- ' trary, the Kaiser himself took possession, — " till once the Duke's ' Widow, who declares herself in the family-way, be brought to l)ed ! ' If of a Son, of course he must have the Duchies ; if of a Daughter ' only, then Carlos shall get them, let iu)t Robinson fear." The due ' months ran, but neither son nor daughter came; and the Treaty of ' Vienna, first edition and also second, was signed ; and, ' October 7,0th, 1731, Spanish Garrisons, no longer an hypothesis, 'but a bodily fact, 6,000 strong, "convoyed by the British Fleet," * came into Leghorn, and proceeded to lodge themselves in the long- ' litigated Parma and Piacenza; — and, in fine, the day after Christmas, ' blessed be Heaven, ' Decembe}- zdth, Baby Carlos in highest person came in : Baby ' Carlos (more power to him !) got the Duchies, and we hope there ' was an end. No young gentleman ever had such a pother to make ' among his fellow-creatures about a little heritable property. If Baby ' Carlos's performance in it be anything in proportion, he will be a ' supereminent sovereign ! ' There is still some haggle about Tuscany, the Duke of which is ' old and heirless ; Last of the Medici, as he proved. Baby Carlos ' would much like to have Tuscany too ; but that is a Fief of the Empire, ' and might easily be better disposed of, thinks the Kaiser. A more or ' less uncertain point, that of Tuscany ; as many points are ! Last of ' the Medici complained, in a polite manner, that they were parting his ' clothes before he had put them off: however, having no strength, he 'did not attempt resistance, but politely composed himself, "Well, ' then!"8 Do readers need to be informed that this same Baby Carlos ' came to be King of Naples, and even ultimately to be Carlos III. of ' Spain, leaving a younger Son to be King of Naples, ancestor of the ' now Majesty there?' And thus, after such Diplomatic earthquakes and travail of Nature, there is at last birth ; the Seventh Travail-throe has been successful, in some measure successful. Here actually is Baby Carlos's Apanage ; there probably, by favour of Hea- ven and of the Sea-Powers, will the Kaiser's Pragmatic Sanc- tion be, one day. Treaty of Se\'ille, most imminent of all those dreadful Imminences of War, has passed off as they all did ; " Scholl, ii. 219-221 ; Coxe's Walpolc, i. 346 ; Coxe's House of Austria (London, 1854), iii. 151. 26 CROWN-PRINCE RETRIEVED. Bookvill. peaceably adjusts itself into Treaty of Vienna : A Termagant, as it were, sated ; a Kaiser hopeful to be so, Pragmatic Sanc- tion and all : for the Sea-Powers and everybody mere halcyon weather henceforth, — not extending to the Gulf of Florida and Captain Jenkins, as would seem ! Robinson, who did the thing, — an expert man, bred to business as old Horace Walpole's Secretary, at Soissons and elsewhere, and now come to act on his own score, — regards this Treaty of Vienna (which indeed had its multiform difficulties) as a thing to immortalise a man. Crown-Prince has, long since, by Papa's order, written to the Kaiser, to thank Imperial Majesty for that beneficent in- tercession, which has proved the saving of his life, as Papa inculcates. We must now see a little how the saved Crown- Prince is getting on, in his eclipsed state, among the Domain Sciences at Ciistrin. CHAPTER V. INTERVIEW OF KIAJESTY AND CROWN-PRINCE AT CUSTRIN. Ever since the end of November last year, Crown-Prince Friedrich, in the eclipsed state, at Ciistrin, has been prosecut- ing his probationary course, in the Domain Sciences and other- wise, with all the patience, diligence and dexterity he could. It is false, what one reads in some foolish Books, that Fried- rich neglected the functions assigned him as assessor in the Kriegs- wid Donidncn-Kammer. That would not have been the safe course for him ! The truth still evident is, he set him- self with diligence to learn the Friedrich-Wilhelm methods of administering Domains, and the art of Finance in general, es- pecially of Prussian Finance, the best extant then or since ; — Finance, Police, Administrative Business ; — and profited well by the Raths appointed as tutors to him, in the respective branches. One Hillc was his Finance-tutor; whose ' Kom- 'J>cndi7im,' drawn up and made use of on this occasion, has been printed in our time ; and is said to be, in brief compass, a highly instructive Piece ; throwing clear light on the exem- plary Friedrich-Wilhelm methods. 1 These the Prince did ac- tually learn ; and also practise, all his life, — ' essentially fol- ' Preuss, i. 59 n. Chap.v. INTERVIEW AT CUSTRIN. 27 1731- lowing his Father's methods,' say the Authorities, — with great advantage to himself, when the time came. Solid Nicolai hunted diligently after traces of him in the Assessor business here ; and found some : — Order from Papa, to ' make Report upon the Glassworks of the Neumark :' Au- tograph signatures to common Reports, one or two ; and some traditions of his having had a hand in planning certain Farm- Buildings still standing in those parts : — but as the Kammer Records of Ciistrin, and Ciistrin itself, were utterly burnt by the Russians in 1758, such traces had mostly vanished thirty years before Nicolai's time.^ Enough have turned up since, in the form of Correspondence with the King and otherwise : and it is certain the Crown-Prince did plan Farm-Buildings ; — ' both Carzig and Himmelstiidt (Carzig now called Friedrichs- ' felde in consequence),'"" dim mossy Steadings, which pious Antiquarianism can pilgrim to if it likes, Avere built or rebuilt by him : — and it is remarkable withal how thoroughly instructed Friedrich Wilhelm shows himself in such matters ; and how paternally delighted to receive such proposals of improvement introducible at the said Carzig and Himmelstadt, and to find young Graceless so diligent, and his ideas even good.^ Per- haps a momentary glance into those affairs may be permitted farther on. The Prince's life, in this his eclipsed state, is one of con- straint, anxiety, continual liability ; but after the first months are well over, it begins to be more supportable than we should think. He is fixed to the little Town ; cannot be absent any night, without leave from the Commandant ; which, however, and the various similar restrictions, are more formal than real. An amiable Crown-Prince, no soul in Ciistrin but would run by night or by day to serve him. He drives and rides about, in that green peaty country, on Domain business, on visits, on permissible amusement, pretty much at his own modest discretion. A green flat region, made of peat and sand ; human industry needing to be always busy on- it : raised causeways with incessant bridges, black sedgy ditch on this hand and that ; many meres, muddy pools, stagnant or flow- ing waters everywhere ; big muddy Oder, of yellowish -drab colour, coming from the south, big black Warta (Warthe) 2 Nicolai, A)iekdoten, vi. 193. * See Map at p. 43. •' Forster, ii. 390, 387, 391. 28 CROWN-PRINCE RETRIEVED. Book viii. J731. from the Polish fens in the east, the black and yellow re- fusing to mingle for some miles. Nothing of the picturesque in this country ; but a good deal of the useful, ot the im- provable by economic science ; and more of fine produc- tions in it, too, of the floral, and still more interesting sorts, than you would suspect at first sight. Friedrich's worst pinch was his dreadful straitness of income ; checking one's noble tendencies on every hand : but the gentry of the district pri- vately subscribed gifts for him {se cotisirent, says Wilhelmina) ; and one way and other he contrived to make ends meet. Miinchow, his President in the Kammer, next to whom sits Friedrich, ' King's place standing always ready but empty there,' is heartily his friend ; the Miinchows are diligent in get- ting up balls, rural gaieties, for him ; so the Hilles, — nay Hille, severe Finance Tutor, has a Mamsell Hille whom it is pleasant to dance with ;^ nor indeed is she the only fascinating speci- men, or flower of loveliness, in those peaty regions, as we shall see. On the whole, his Royal Highness, after the first par- oxysms of Royal suspicion are over, and forgiveness beginning to seem possible to the Royal mind, has a supportable time of it ; and possesses his soul in patience, in activity and hope. Unpermitted things, once for all, he must avoid to do : per- haps he will gradually discover that many of them were fool- ish things better not done. He walks warily; to this all things continually admonish. We trace in him some real desire to be wise, to do and learn what is useful if he can here. But the grand problem, which is reality itself to him, is always, To regain favour with Papa. And this, Papa being what he is, gives a twist to all other problems the young man may have, for they must all shape themselves by this ; and introduces something of artificial, — not properly of hypocritical, for that too is fatal if found out, — but of calculated, reticent, of half- sincere, on the Son's part : an inevitable feature, plentifully visible in their Correspondence now and henceforth. Corre- sponding with Papa and his Grumkow, and watched, at every step, by such an Argus as the Tobacco-Parliament, real frank- ness of speech is not quite the recommendable thing; appar- ent frankness may be the safer ! Besides mastery in the Do- main Sciences, I perceive the Crown-Prince had to study here another art, useful to him in after life : the art of wearing < Preuss, i. 59. Chap.v. INTERVIEW AT CUSTRIN. 29 among his fellow-creatures a polite cloak-of-darkness. Gradu- ally he becomes master of it as few are : a man politely im- pregnable to the intrusion of human curiosity; able to look cheerily into the very eyes of men, and talk in a social way face to face, and yet continue intrinsically invisible to them. An art no less essential to Royalty than that of the Domain Sciences itself; and. — if at all consummately done, and with a scorn of mendacity for help, as in this case, — a difficult art. It is the chief feature in the Two or Three Thousand Lctteis we yet have of Friedrich's to all manner of correspondents : Letters written with the gracefulest flowing rapidity ; polite, affable, — refusing to give you the least glimpse into his real inner man, or tell you any particular you might impertinently wish to know. As the History of Friedrich, in this Ciistrin epoch, and in- deed in all epochs and parts, is still little other than a whirl- pool of simmering confusions, dust mainly, and sibylline paper- shreds, in the pages of poor Dryasdust, perhaps we cannot do better than snatch a shred or two (of the partly legible kind, or capable of being made legible) out of that hideous cauldron ; pin them down at their proper dates ; and try if the reader can, by such means, catch a glimpse of the thing with his own eyes. Here is shred first ; a Piece in Grumkow's hand. This treats of a very grand incident ; which forms an era or turning-point in the Ciistrin life. Majesty has actually, after hopes long held out of such a thing, looked in upon the Pro- digal at Ciistrin, in testimony of possible pardon in the dis- tance ; — sees him again, for the first time since that scene at Wesel with the drawn sword, after year and day. Grumkow, for behoof of Seckendorf and the Vienna people, has drawn a rough • Protocol' of it ; and here it is, snatched from the Dust- whirlwinds, and faithfully presented to the Enghsh reader. His Majesty is travelling towards Sonnenburg, on some grand Knight-of-Malta Ceremony there ; and halts at Ciistrin for a couple of hours as he passes : Grumkow's ' Proiokoll' of the i^lh August 1731 ; or Summary 0/ what took place at Cilstnti that day. ' His Majesty arrived at Ciistrin yesterday' {gesterti, Monday 1 5th, —hour not mentioned), 'and proceeded at once to the Government 30 CROWN-PRINCE RETRIEVED. Bookvill. ijiliAug. 1731. ' House, with an attendance of several hundred persons. Major-General ' Lepel, ' Commandant of Clistrin, ' Colonel Derschau and myself are ' immediately sent for to his Majesty's apartment there. Privy-Coun- * cillor Wold en,' Prince's Hofmarschall, a solid legal man, 'is ordered ' by his Majesty to bring the Crown-Prince over from his house; who ' accordingly in few minutes, attended by Rohwedel and Natzmer,' the two Kammerjunkers, 'entered the room where his Majesty and we were. ' So soon as his Majesty, turning round, had sight of him, the ' Crown-Prince fell at his feet. Having bidden him rise, his Majesty ' £aid with a severe mien : ' ' ' You will now bethink yourself what passed year and day ago ; " and how scandalously you saw fit to behave yourself, and what a ' ' godless enterprise you took in hand. As I have had you about me " from the beginning, and must know you well, I did all in the world ' ' that was in. my power, by kindness and by harshness, to make an " honourable man of you. As I rather suspected your evil purpose, I " treated you in the harshest and sharpest way in the Saxon Camp," at Radewitz, in those gala days, ' ' in hopes you would consider your- " self, and take another line of conduct; would confess your faults to ' ' me, and beg forgiveness. But all in vain ; you grew ever more stiff- " necked. When a young man gets into follies with women, one may " try to overlook it as the fault of his age: but to do with forethought " basenesses {Idchdeen) and ugly actions; that is unpardonable. You " thought to carry it through with your headstrong humour: but hark " ye, my lad (hore, mein Kerl), if thou wert sixty or seventy instead " of eighteen, thou couldst not cross my resolutions." It would take a bigger man to do that, my lad ! " And as, up to this date {bis data) " I have managed to sustain myself against any comer, there will be " methods found of bringing thee to reason tool — ' " How have not I, on all occasions, meant honourably by you! " Last time I got wind of your debts, how did I, as a Father, admon- " ish you to tell me all; I M'ould pay all, you were only to tell me the " truth. Whereupon you said. There were still Two-thousand Thalers " beyond the sum named. I paid these also at once; and fancied I had " made peace with you. And then it was found, by and by, you owed " many thousands more; and as you now knew you could not pay, it " was as good as if the money had been stolen; — not to reckon how " the French vermin, Montholieu and partner, cheated you with their " new loans." Pfui! " Nothing touched me so much" (continues his Majesty, verging towards the pathetic), "as that you had not any " trust ill me. All this that I was doing for aggrandisement of the " House, tlic Army and Finances, could only be for you, if you made " yourself worthy of it ! I here declare I have done all things to gain " your friendship; — and all lias been in vain!" At M'hich words the ' Crown- Prince, witli a very sorrowful gesture, threw himself at his ' Majesty's feet,' — tears (presumably) in both their eyes by this time. Chap.v. INTERVIEW AT CUSTRIN. 31 15th Aug. 1731. ' " Was it not your intention to go to England ?" asked his Majesty ' farther on. The Prince answered '^ Ja 1" — "Then hear what the " consequences would have been. Your Mother would have got into ' ' the greatest misery ; I could not but have suspected she was the " author of the business. Your Sister I would have cast, for life, into ' ' a place where she never would have seen sun and moon again. Then " on with my Army into Hanover, and burn and ravage ; yes, if it had " cost me life, land and people. Your thoughtless and godless conduct, " see w-hat it was leading to. I intended to employ you in all manner ' ' of business, civil, military ; but how, after such an action, could I " show the face of you to my Officers (soldiers) and other servants? — " The one way of repairing all this is. That you seek, regardless of your " very life in comparison, to make the fault good again!" At which ' words the Crown-Prince mournfully threw himself at his Royal Ma- ' jesty's feet ; begging to be put upon the hardest proofs : He would ' endure all things, so as to recover his Majesty's grace and esteem. 'Whereupon the King asked him: "Was it thou that temptedst ' Katte; or did Katte tempt thee?" The Crown-Prince without hesit- ' ation answered, "I tempted him." — "I am glad to hear the truth ' from you, at any rate." ' The Dialogue now branches out, into complex general form ; out of which, intent upon abridging, we gather the following points. King loquitur : "How do you like your Ciistrin life? Still as much aversion to " Wusterhausen, and to wearing your shroud" {StcrbeJdttel, name for the tight uniform you would now be so glad of, and think quite other than a shroud!) "as you calledit?" Prince's answer wanting. — "Likely ' ' enough my company does not suit you : I have no French manners, " and cannot bring out bon-viots in \[\t pelit-maitre way; and truly re- " gard all that as a thing to be flung to the dogs. I am a German " Prince; and mean to live and die in that character. But you can now " say what you have got by your caprices and obstinate heart; hating "everything that I liked ; and if I distinguished any one, despising " him! If an Officer was put in arrest, you took to lamenting about " him. Your real friends, who intended your good, you hated and "calumniated; those that flattered you, and encouraged your bad " purpose, you caressed. You see what that has come to. In Berlin, " in all Prussia for some time back, nobody asks after you. Whether ' ' you are in the world or not ; and were it not one or the other coming " from Ciistrin who reports you as playing tennis and wearing French " hairbags, nobody would know whether you were alive or dead." Plard sayings; to which the Prince's answers (if there were any be- yond mournful gestures) are not given. We come now upon Predesti- nation, or the Gnademvahl ; and learn (with real interest, not of the laughing sort alone) how his 'Majesty, in the most conclusive way, set ' forth the horrible results of that Absolute-Decree notion ; which makes ' out God to be the Author of Sin, and that Jesus Christ died only for 32 CROWN-PRINCE RETRIEVED. Bookviit. 15th Aug. 1731. ' some! Upon which the Crown-Prince vowed and declared (hoch und ' theucr), he was now wholly of his Majesty's orthodox opinion.' The King, now thoroughly moved, expresses satisfaction at the orthodoxy; and adds with enthusiasm, " When godless fellows about " you speak against your duties to God, the King and your Country, " fall instantly on your knees, and pray with your whole soul to Jesus " Christ to deliver you from such wickedness, and lead you on better " ways. And if it come in earnest from your heart, Jesus, who would " have all men saved, will not leave you unheard." No! And so may God in his mercy aid you, poor son Fritz. And as for me, in hopes the time coming will show fruits, I forgive you what is past.-^To which the Crown - Prince answered with monosyllables, with many tears ; ' kissing his Majesty's feet ;' — and as the King's eyes M'ere not dry, he withdrew into another room ; revolving many things in his altered soul. ' It being his Majesty's birthday' (4th August by old style, 15th by neu\ forty-third birthday), ' the Prince, all bevvept and in emotion, ' followed his Father; and, again falling prostrate, testified such heart- ' felt joy, gratitude and aftection over this blessed anniversary, as quite ' touched the heart of Papa ; who at last clasped him in his amis' (poor soul, after all!), 'and hurried out to avoid blubbering quite aloud. He ' stept into his carriage,' intending for Sonnenburg (chiefly by water) this evening, where a Serene Cousin, one of the Schwedt Margraves, Head Knight of Malta, has his establishment. ' The Crown-Prince followed his Majesty out ; and, in the presence ' of many hvuidred people, kissed his Majesty's ieet' again (linen gaiters, not Day-and-Martin shoes); 'and was again embraced by his Majesty, ' who said, " Behave well, as I see you mean, and I will take care of * you," which threw the Crown-Prince into such rn ecstasy of joy as ' no pen can express:' and so the carriages rolled away, — towards the Knights-of-Malta business and Palace of the Head Knight of Malta, in the first place. ^ These are the main points, says Grumkow, reporting next day ; and the reader must interpret them as he can. A Crow^n- Prince with excellent histrionic talents, thinks the reader. Well ; a certain exaggeration, immensity of wish becoming it- self enthusiasm ; somewhat of that : but that is by no means the whole or even the main part oi the phenomenon, O reader. This Crown-Prince has a real affection to his Father, as we shall in time convince ourselves. Say, at lowest, a Crown- Prince loyal to fact ; able to recognise overwhelming fact, and aware that he must surrender thereto. Surrender once made, the clement much clears itself ; Papa's side of the question getting fairly stated for the first time. Sure enough, Papa is * FOrstcr, iii. 30-54. Cl.np.V. INTERVIEW AT CUSTKIN. 33 15th Aug. 1731. God's Vicegerent in several undeniable respects, most import- ant some of them : better try if we can obey Papa. Dim old Fassmann yields a spark or two, — as to his Ma- jesty's errand at Sonnenburg. Majesty is going to preside to- morrow 'at the Installation of young Margraf Karl, new //tvr- mcistcr (Grand-Master) of the Knights of St. John' there ; 'the Office having suddenly fallen vacant lately.' Office which is is an heirloom ; — usually held by one of the Margraves, half- uncles of the King, — some junior of them, not provided for at Schwedt or otherwise. Margraf Albert, the last occupant, an old gentleman 01 sixty, died lately, ' by stroke of apoplexy while at dinner ;'^ — and his eldest Son, Margraf Karl, with whom his Majesty lodges tonight, is now Herrmeister. ' Majesty came at six P.M. to Sonnenburg' (must have left Ciistrin about five) ; •forty-two Ritters made at Sonnenburg next day,' — a certain Colonel or Lieutenant-General von Wrccch, whom we shall soon see again, is one of them ; Seckendorf another. ' Fresh Ritter-ScJdag (' Knightstroke,' Batch of Knights dubbed) 'at Sonnenburg, 29th September next,' which shall not the least concern us. Note Margraf Karl, however, the new Herrmeister ; for he proves a soldier of some mark, and will turn-up again in the Silesian Wars ; — as will a poor Brother of his still more im- pressively, ' shot dead beside the King,' on one occasion there. We add this of Dickens, for all the Diplomatists, and a discerning public generally, are much struck with the Event at Ciistrin ; and take to writing of it as news ; — and ' Mr. Gin- kel,' Dutch Ambassador here, an ingenious, honest and observ- ant man, well enough known to us, has been out to sup with the Prince, next day ; and thus reports of him to Dickens ; • Mr. Ginkel, who supped with the Prince on Thursday last,' day after the Interview, 'tells me that his Royal Highness is ' extremely improved since he had seen him ; being grown ' much taller ; and that his convei^sation is surprising for his ' age, abounding in good sense and the prettiest turns of ex- ' pression.'^ Here are other shreds, snatched from the Witch-Cauldron, and pinned down, each at its place ; which give us one or two subsequent glimpses : ^ 2ist June 1731 : Fassmann, p. 423; Polluitz, ii. 390. ' Despatch, i8th August 1731. VOL. III. D 34 CROWN-PRINCE RETRIEVED. BookVliI. iith Sept. 1 73 1. Potsdam, ■zist August 1731 (King to Wolucn (.lie Ilofmarschall). o e o ' Crown-Prince sliall travel over, and personally inspect, the fol- ' lowing Domains : Quartschen, Himmelstadt, Carzig, Massin, Lebus, ' Gollow and Wollup,' dingy moor-farms dear to Antiquarians ; 'travel ' over these and not any other. Permission always to be asked, of his ' Royal Majesty, in writing, and mention made to which of them the ' Crown-Prince means to go. Some one to be always in attendance, 'who can give him lit instruction about the husbandry; and as the ' Crown-Prince has yet only learned the theory, he must now be diligent ' to learn the same practically. For which end it must be minutely ' explained to him, How the husbandry is managed, — how ploughed, ' manured, sown, in every particular; and what the differences of good ' and bad husbandry are, so that he may be able of himself to know ' and judge the same. Of Cattle-husbandry too, and the affairs of ' Brewing ( Viclizucht iind Brauxvesen), the due understanding to be ' given him ; and in the matter of Brewing, show him how things are ' handled, mixed, the beer drawn off, barrelled, and all how they do ' with it {-vie ■iibcrall dabci vcrfahren) ; also the malt, how it must be ' prepared, and what like, when good. Useful discourse to be kept-up ' with him on these journeys; pointing out how and why this is and ' that, and whether it could not be better :' — O King of a thousand ! — ' Has liberty to shoot stags, moorcocks [Hiihucr) and the like ; and a ' small-hunt' {klcine jfagd, not a Parforce or big one) ' can be got-up ' for his amusement now and then ;' furthermore ' a little duck-shooting ' from boat,' on the sedgy waters there, — if the poor soul should care about it. Wolden, or one of the Kammerjunkers, to accompany always, and be responsible. ' No Mddchen or Fraiiensiiicnsch,' no shadow of womankind; — keep an eye on him, 'you three!' These things are in the Prussian Archives ; of date the week after that interview. In two weeks farther, follows the Prince's speculation about Carzig and the Building of a Farm- stead there ; with Papa's ' real contentment that you come upon • such proposals, and seek to make improvements. Only' — Wuslerhausen, nth September (\s.mgio Cxown^nncc). ■"■ * 'Only ' you must examine whether there is meadow-ground enough, and how ' many acres can actually be allotted to that Farm. ' (Hear his Majesty !) ' Take a Land-surveyor with you ; and have all well considered ; and ' exactly inform y-(QEuvies, .\.xvii. part 3d, p. 27). 36 CROWN-rRINCE RETRIEVED. Bookviil. 4th Oct. 1731. Crown-Prince ; — being his neighbour in those parts ; Colonel- Commandant of a regiment of Horse at Landsberg not many- miles off. He has just been at Vienna^** on some 'business' (quasi-diplomatic probably, which can remain unknown to us) ; and has reported upon it, or otherwise finished it off, at Ber- lin ; — whence rapidly home to Landsberg again. On the way homewards, and after getting home, he writes these three Let- ters ; offhand and in all privacy, and of course with a business sincerity, to Grumkow ; — little thinking they would one day get printed, and wander into these latitudes to be scanned and scrutinised ! Undoubtedly an intricate crabbed Document to us ; but then an indubitable one. Crown-Prince, Schulenburg himself, and the actual figure of Time and Place, are here mir- rored for us, with a business sincerity, in the mind of Schulen- burg, — as from an accidental patch of water ; ruffled bogwater, in sad twilight, and with sedges and twigs intervening ; but under these conditions we do look with our own eyes ! Could not one, by any conceivable method, interpret into legibility this abstruse dull Document ; and so pick out here and there a glimpse, actual face-to-face view, of Crown-Prince Friedrich in his light-gray frock with the narrow silver tresses, in his eclipsed condition there in the Ciistrin region ? All is very mysterious about him ; his inward opinion about all manner of matters, from the Gnadcnivalil to the late Double-Marriage Question. Even his outward manner of life, in its flesh-and- blood physiognomy, — we search in vain through tons of dusty lucubration totally without interest, to catch here and there the corner of a feature of it. Let us try Scliulenburg. We shall know at any rate that to Grumkow, in the Autumn 173 1, these words were luculcnt and significant : consciously they tell us something of young Friedrich ; unconsciously a good deal of Lieutenant-Gcneral Schulenburg, who with his strict theolo- gies, his military stiffnesses, his reticent, pipeclayed, rigorous and yet human ways, is worth looking at, as an antique spe- cies extinct in our time. He is just home from Vienna, getting towards his own domicile from Berlin, from Ciistrin, and has seen the Prince. He writes in a wretched wayside tavern, or post-house, between Ciistrin and Landsberg, — dates his Letter ' IVicn (Vienna),' as if he were still in the imperial City, so offhand is he. iw bcpiemlcr 1731 [^MiliUur-Lexikon, iii, 433). Chap.v. DINES AT KAMMIN. 37 4th Oct. 173 r. No. I. To his Exccllcnz (add a shovelful of other titles) Licutcnant- General Jlci-r Baron von Grrtmkow, President of the Kricqes-nnd Domdnen-Directoritim, oj the (in fact, Vice-President of the Tobacco- Parliament), ui Berlin. ' Wien' (properly Tjerlln-Landsberg Highway, other side of Ciistrin), ' 4th October 1731. ' I regret mnch to have missed the pleasure ot seeing your Excellency ' again l)e(ore I left Berlin. I set off betAveen seven and eight in the ' morning yesterday, and got to Ciistrin' (seventy miles or so) ' before ' seven at night. But the Prince had gone, that day, to the Bailliage ' of riimmelstadt' (up the Warta Country, eastward some five-and-thirty miles, much preparatoiy digging and stubbing there); and he 'slept at ' JMassin' (circuitous road back), ' where he shot a few stags this mom- ' ing. As I was told he might probably dine at Kammin' (still nearer Ciistrin, twelve miles from it; half that distance east ofZomdorf, — mark that, O reader*) ' with Madam Colonel Schoning, I drove thither. ' He had arrived there a moment before me.' And who is JMadam Schoning, lady of Kammin here? — Patience, reader. ' I found him much grown; an air of health and gaiety about him. ' He caressed me greatly {me gracieiisa fort) ; afterwards questioned me ' about my way of life in Vienna ; and asked, if I had diverted myself ' well there? I told him what business had been the occasion of my 'journey, and that this rather than amusements had occupied me; for ' the rest, that there had been great aflluence of company, and no lack ' of diversions. He spoke a long time to Madam de Wreech' — ' Wrochem' Schulenburg calls her : young Wife of Lieutenant- General von Wreech, a Marlborough Campaigner, made a Knight of Malta the other day;^^ — /i/s charming young Wife, and Daughter of Madam Colonel Schoning our hostess here ; lives at Tamsel, in high style, in these parts : mark the young Lady well, — ' who did not appear indifferent to him.' No ! — ' and in fact she v.as ' in all her beauty; a complexion of lily and rose.' Charming creature ; concerning v/hom there are anecdotes still afloat, and at least verses of this Prince's writing ; not too well seen by Wreech, lately made a Knight of Malta, who, though only turning forty, is perhaps twice her age. The beautifulest, cleverest, — fancy it; and whether the peaty Neumark pro- duces nothing in the floral kind ! ' We went to dinner ; he asked me to sit beside him. The conversa- ' tion fell, among other topics, on the Elector Palatine's Mistress,' — crotchety old gentleman, never out of quai-rels, with Heidelberg Pro- testants, heirs of Jiilich and Berg, and in general with an unreasonable * Map at p. 43. " Militair-Lexikoit, iv. 269. 38 CROWN-PRINCE RETRIEVED. nookviir. 4th Oct. 1 73 1. world, whom we saw at Mannheim last year ; has a Mistress, — 'Elector ' Palatine's Mistress, called Taxis. Crown-Prince said: "I should like ' to know what that good old gentleman does with a Mistress?" I * answered, that the fashion had come so much in vogue, Princes did ' not think they were Princes unless they had mistresses ; and that I ' was amazed at the facility of women, how they could shut their eyes ' on the sad reverse of fortune nearly inevitable for them ; — and instanced ' the example of Madam Gr'avenitz' — ' Gravenitz ;' example lately fallen-out at Wiirtemberg, as we predicted. Prayers of the Country, " Deliver us from evil," are now answered there : Gravenitz quite over with it ! Alas, yes ; lately fallen from her high estate in Wiirtemberg, and become the topic of dinner-tables ; seized by soldiers in the night-time ; vain her high refusals, assurances of being too unwell to dress, " Shall go in your shift, then," — is in prison, totally eclipsed.^- Calming her fury, she will get out ; and wearisomely wander about in fashionable capitals, tonjoiirs icn lavement a ses iroiisses I — ' There were other subjects touched upon ; and I always endeavoured ' to deduce something of moral instruction from them,' being a military gentleman of the old school. ' Among other things, he said. Pie liked the great world, and was ' charmed to observe the ridiculous weak side of some people. "That ' is excellent," said I, "if one profit by it oneself: but if it is only for ' amusement, such a motive is worth little ; m'C should rather look out ' for our own ridiculous weak side." On rising, Hofmarschall Wolden ' said to me,' without much sincerity, ' "You have done well to preach •' a little morality to him." The Prince went to a window, and beckoned ' me thither. ' "You have learned nothing of what is to become of me?" said ' he. I answered : " It is supposed your Royal Highness will return to ' Berlin, when the Marriage" (Wilhclmina's) "takes place; but as to ' what will come next, I have heard nothing. But as your Iliglmess ' has friends, they will not fail to do their endeavour; and M. de Gnim- ' kow has told me he would try to persuade the King to give you a ' regiment, in order that your Higlincss might have something to do." ' It seemed as if tliat would give him pleasure. I then took the liberty ' of saying : " Monseigneur, the most, at present, depends on yourself." ' — " How so?" asked he. I answered, " It is only hy showing good ' conduct, and proofs of real wisdom and \\orlh, that the King's entire ' favour can l^e gained. First of all, to fear God" ' And, in fact, I launched now into a moral preachment, or discursive Dialogue, of great lenglli ; much needing to have tlie skirls of it Iv.cked up, in a way of faithful abridgment, for behoof of poor English readers. As follows : '- Michaclis, iii. 440; Pollnitz, i. 297. Ciinp.v. DINES AT KAMMIN. 39 4th Oct. 1731. "■ Schitlcnhitrcr ; If your Highness behave well, the King will accord ' what you want; but it is absolutely necessary to begin by that. — ' Prince : I do nothing that can displease the King. — Schiilcubiirg : It ' would be a little soon yet ! But I speak of the future. Your High- ' ness, the grand thing I recommend is to fear God I Everybody says, ' you have the sentiments of an honest man ; excellent, that, for a be- ' ginning ; but without the fear of God, your Highness, the passions ' stifle the finest sentiments. Must lead a life clear of reproach ; and ' more particularly on the chapter of women ! Need not imagine you ' can do the least thing without the King's knowing it: if your High- ' ness take the bad road, he wWX wish to correct it; the end will be, ' he will bring you back to live beside him ; which will not be very 'agreeable. — Prince: Hmph, No! — ScJmlenbiirg: Ofthe ruin to health ' I do not speak ; I — Prince : Pooh, one is young, one is not master ' of that ;' — and, in fact, on this delicate chapter, which runs to some length, Prince answers as wildish young fellows will ; quizzing my grave self, with glances even at his Majesty, on alleged old peccadilloes of ours. Which allegations or inferences I rebutted with emphasis. "'But, ' I confess, though I employed all my rhetoric, his mind did not seem ' to alter; and it will be a miracle if he change on this head.' Alas, General! Can't be helped, I fear! * He said he was not afraid of anything so much as of living con- ' stantly beside the King. — Schulcnbnrg : Arm yourself with patience, ' Monseigneur, if that happen. God has given you sense enough; ' persevere to use it faithfully on all occasions, you will gain the good ' graces of the King. — Prince: Impossible; beyond my power, indeed, ' said he; and made a thousand objections. — Schnlenburg : YourHigh- ' ness is like one that will not learn a trade because you do not already ' know it. Begin ; you will certainly never know it otherwise ! Before ' rising in the morning, form a plan for your day,' — in fact, be moral, O be moral ! His Highness now got upon the marriages talked -of for him ; an important point for the young man. He spoke, hope- fully rather, of the marriage with the Princess of Mecklenburg, — Niece of the late Czar Peter the Great ; Daughter of that unhappy Duke who is in quarrel with his Ritters, and a trouble to all his neighbours, and to us among the number. Readers recollect that young Lady's Serene Mother, and a meeting she once had with her Uncle Peter, — at Magdeburg, a dozen years ago, in a public drawingroom with alcove near ; — anecdote not lightly to be printed in human types, nor repeated where not necessary. The Mother is now dead ; Father still up to the eyes in puddle and trouble : but as for the young Lady herself, she is Niece to the now Czarina Anne ; by law of primogeni- ture Heiress of all the Russias : something of a match truly ! 40 CROWN-PRINCE RETRIEVED. BooIcVIII. 4th Oct. 1731, ' But there v,ill l)c difficulties; your Highness to chnnge your reli- ' gion, lor one thing? — Frincc : Won't, by any means. — Sthtilcnburg: ' And give-up the succession to Prassia? — Prince : A right fool if I did ! ' — Schii/cnbnrg : Then this marriage comes to nothing. — Thereupon ' next he said, If the Kaiser is so strong for us, let him give me his ' second Daughter;' lucky Franz of Lorraine is to get the first. — ^Sclmlcii- ' burg : Are you serious? — Prince : Why not? with a Duchy or two it ' would do very well. — Schulenbnrg : No Duchies possible under the ' Pragmatic Sanction, your Highness : besides, your change of religion? ' — Prince : Oh, as to that, never ! — Then this marriage also comes to ' nothing. Of the English, and their Double-Marriage, and their Ho- ' tham brabble, he spoke lightly, as of an extinct matter, — in terms ' your Excellency will like. ' But, said I, since you speak so much of marriages, I suppose you 'wish to be married? — Prince: No; but if the King absolutely will ' have it, I will marry to obey him. After that, I will shove my wife ' into the corner [planterai la ma feinme), and live after my o^^'n fancy. ' — Schnlenburg : Horrible to think of! For, in the first place, your ' Plighness, is it not written in the Law of God, Adulterers shall not ' inherit the Kingdom of Heaven?' And in the second place; and in the third and fourth place ! — To all which he answered as wild young fel- lows do, especially if you force marriage on them. ' I can perceive, if ' he marries, it will only be to have more liberty than now. It is cer- ' tain, if he had his elbows free, he would strike out {s'en donnerait a '■ gaitche). He said to me several times : "I am young; I want to ' profit by my youth." ' A questionable young fellow, Herr General ; especially if j'ou force marriage on him. ' This conversation done,' continues the General, 'he set to talking ' with the Madam Wrcech, ' and her complexion of lily and rose ; ' but ' he did not stay long; drove off about five' (dinner at the stroke of twelve in those countries), ' inviting me to see him again at Ciistrin, ' which I promised.' And so the Prince is off in the Autumn sunset, driving down the peaty hollow of the Warta, through unpicturesque country, which produces Wreechs and incomparable flowers nevertheless. Yes ; and if he look a si.x miles to the right, there is the smoke of the evening kettles from Zorndorf, rising into the sky ; and across the River, a twenty miles to the left, is Kuncrsdorf : poor sleepy sandy hamlets ; where nettles of the Devil arc to be plucked one day ! — 'The beautiful Wrecch drove off to Tamsel,' her fine house: I to this wretclied tavern; where, a couple of hours after that conversation, I began writing it all down, and have nothing else to do for the night. ^■our Excellency's most moral, stiffnecked, pipeclayed and extremely obedient, ' VoN ScilUi.ENFURG.''' '3 Furslcr, iii. 65-71. Chap.v. DINES AT LANDSBERG. 41 iglh Oct. 1731. This yoiinc^ man may be orthodox on Predestination, and outwardly growing all that a Papa could wish ; but here arc strange heterodoxies, here is plenty of mutinous capricious fire in the interior of him, Herr General ! In fact, a young man unfortunately situated ; already become solitary in Creation ; has not, except himself, a friend in the world available just now. Tempestuous Papa storms one way, tempestuous Mamma Na- ture another ; and between the outside and the inside there are inconsistencies enough. Concerning the fair Wrecch of Tamsel, with her complexion of lily and rose, there ensued by and by much whispering, and rumouring underbreath ; which has survived in the apocryphal Anecdote-Books, not in too distinct a form. Here, from first hand, are three words, which we may take to be the essence of the whole. Grumkow reporting, in a sordid, occasionally smutty, spy manner, to his Seckcndorf, from Berlin, eight or ten months hence, has this casual expression : ' He' (King Friedrich Wilhelm) ' told me in confidence that Wreech, the ' Colonel's Wife, is to P. R. (Prince-Royal) ; and that ' Wreech vowed he would not own it for his. And his Ma- ' jesty in secret is rather pleased,' adds the smutty spy.^"^ Elsewhere I have read that the poor object, which actually came as anticipated (male or female, I forget), did not live long ; — nor had Friedrich, by any opportunity, another child in this world. Domestic Tamsel had to allay itself as it best could ; and the fair Wreech became much a stranger to Fried- rich, — surprisingly so to Friedrich the King, as perhaps we may see. Predestination, Gnademvahl, Herr General : v/hat is ortho- doxy on Predestination, with these accompaniments l^^ Wc go now to the Second Letter and the Third, — from Lands- berg about a fortnight later : No. 2. To //IS Excellency (shovelful of titles) von Grtuiilcoiu, in Berlin. ' Lcind?iberg, igth October 1731. 'The day before yesterday' (that is, Wednesday 17th October) 'I ' received an Order, To have only fifty Horse at that post, and' — Order " Grumkow to Seckendorf, Berlin, 20th August 1732 (Forstei-; iii. 112). '• For Wreech see Benekendorf, v. 94; for Schulenbiirg, ib. 26; — and Militair- Lexiko/i, iii. 432, 433, and iv. 268, 269. Vacant on the gossiping points; cautiously odicial, both these. 42 CROWN-PRINCE RETRIEVED. rod: viir. 19th Oct. 1731. which shows us that there has fallen out some recruiting squabble on the Polish Frontier hereabouts ; that the Polack gentlemen have seized certain Corporals of ours, but are about restoring them ; Order and affair which we shall omit. ' Corporals will be got back : but as these ' Polack gentlemen will see, by the course taken, that we have no great ' stomach for biting, I fancy they will grow more insolent ; then, 'ware ' who tries to recruit there for the future ! ' On the same day I was apprised, from Ciistrin, That the Prince- * Royal had resolved on an excursion to Carzig, and thence to the Bail- ' liage of Plimmelstadt' (digging and stubbing now on foot at Himmel- stadt too), ' which is but a couple of miles"' from this ; that there ' would be a little hunt between the two Bailliages; and that if I chose ' to come, I might, and the Prince would dine with me. ' — Which I did ; and so, here again, Thursday i Sth October 1 73 1, in those remote Warta- Oder Countries, is a glimpse of his Royal Highness at first hand. Schulenburg continues; not even taking a new paragraph, which in- deed he never does : 'They had shut-up a couple oi Spiesser (young roes), and some ' stags, in the old wreck of a Satigarteii^ (Boar-park, between Carzig and Himmelstadt ; fast ruiuirtcii Smigarten, he calls it, daintily throw- ing-in a touch of German here) : ' the Prince shot one or two of them, ' and his companions the like; but it does not seem as if this amuse- ' ment were much to his taste. He went on to Himmelstadt; and at ' noon he an-ived here,' in my poor Domicile at Landsberg. 'At one o'clock we went to table, and sat till four. He spoke only ' of very indifferent things; except saying to me: "Do you know, the ' King has promised 400,000 crowns (60,000/.) towards disengaging ' those Bailliages of the Margraf of Baireuth's," ' — old Margraf, Bail- liages pawned to raise ready cash; readers remember what intenninable Law-pleading there was, till Friedrich Wilhelm put it into a liquid state, " Pay me back the moneys, then !"" — ' '■' 400,000 thalers to the ' old Margraf, in case his Prince (Wilhelmina's now Bridegroom) have ' a son by my Sister." I answered, I had heard nothing of it. — "But," ' said he, "that is a great deal of money! And some hundred-thou- ' sands more have gone the like road, to Anspach, who never will ' be able to repay. For all is much in disorder at Anspach. Give ' the Margraf his Heron-hunt [c/iasse au heron), he cares for nothing; ' and his people pluck him at no allowance." I said: That if these ' Princes would regulate their expenditure, they might, little by little, ' pay-off their debts; that I had been told at Vienna the Baireuth Bail- ' liagcs were mortgaged on very low terms, those who now held them ' making eight or tcnpcr-cent of their money;' — that the Margraf ought lo make an effort; and so on. ' I saw very well that these Loans the ' King makes arc not to his mind. ' Directly on rising from talile, he went away; excusing himself lo ' me, That he could not pass the night here ; that the King would not !''• ' Dfitii-millc German. " Suprh, vol. ii. pp. 228-g. Chap. V. SCHULENBURG'S SECOND LETTER. 43 19th Oct. 1731. ' like his sleeping in the Town; besides that he had still several things ' to complete in a Report he was sending-off to his Majesty. He went to ' Massin, and slept there. For my own share, I did not press him to ' remain ; what I did Avas rather in the way of form. There were with ' him President Miinchow,' civil gentleman whom we know, 'an En- ' gineer Captain Reger, and the three Gentlemen of his Court,' Wold en, yRANKFffBT \ I- \ Rohwedel, Natzmer who once twirled his finger in a certain mouth, the insipid fellow. ' He is no great eater; but I observed he likes the small dishes ' {pdils plats) and the high tastes: he does not care lor fish; though I ' had very fine trouts, he never touched them. He does not take brown * soup {soup au bouillon). It did not seem to me he cared lor wine : 44 CROWN-PRINCE RETRIEVED. Bookviir. 19th Oct. 1731. ' he tastes at all the wines; but commonly stands by bni-gmidy with ' water. ' 1 introduced to him all the Officers of my Regiment who are here; ' he received th.em in the style of a king' {rn roi, plenty ot quiet pride in him, Herr General). ' It is certain he feels what he is born to; and ' if ever he get to it, will stand on the top of it. As to me, I mean to ' keep myself retired ; and shall see of him as little as I can. I per- ' ceive well he does not like advice,' especially when administered in the v.'ay of preachment, by stiff old military gentlemen of the all-wise stamp ; — ' and does not take pleasure except with people infei-ior to ' him in mind. His first aim is to find-out the ridiculous side of every ' one, and he loves to banter and c|uiz. It is a fault in a Prince : he ' ought to know people's faults, and not to make them known to any- ' body whatever,' — which, we perceive, is not quite the method with private gentlemen of the all-wise type ! — ' I speak to your Excellency as a friend ; and assure you he is a ' Prince who has talent, but who will be the slave of his passions {se ' /e]-a dominer par ses passions,' — not a felicitous prophecy, Herr Gene- ral) ; ' and will like nobody but such as encourage him therein. For ' me, I think all Princes are cast in the same mould ; there is only a ' more and a less. 'At parting, he embraced me twice; and said, "I am soriyl can- ' not stay longer; but another time I %vill profit better." Wolden' (one of the Three) ' told me he could not describe how well-intentioned for ' your Excellency the Prince-Royal is' (cunning dog !), 'who says often ' to Wolden' (doubtless guessing it will be re-said), "If I cannot show ' /ii>n my gratitude, I will his posterity :" ' — profoundly obliged to the Grumkow kindred first and last ! — ' I remain your Excellency's' most pipeclayed ' VoN Schulenburg.''* And so, after survey of the spademen at Carzig and Himmel- stiidt (where Colonel Wreech, by the way, is Amts-Hauptmanii, Cmcial Head-man), after shooting a Spiesser or two, and dining and talking in this sort, his Royal Highness goes to sleep at Massin ; and ends one day of his then life. We proceed to Letter No. 3. A day or two after No. 2, it would appear, his Majesty, who is commonly at Wusterhauscn hunting in this season, has lieen rapidly out to Crossen, in these Landsberg regions (to south, within a day's drive of Landsberg), rapidly looking after fjomething ; Grumkow and another Official attending him : — other Official, 'Truchsess,' isTruchsess von Waldburg, a worthy soldier and gentleman of those parts, whom we shall again f llie meaning of it? Chap. VI. WILHELMINA'S WEDDING. 55 24th Nov. 1731. Neither King nor he appeared at supper : they were supping elsewhere, with a select circle ; and the whisper ran among us, Ilis Majesty was treating him with great friendliness. At which the Queen, contrary to hope, could not conceal her secret pique. ' In fact, ' says Wilhelmina, again too hard on Mamma, ' she did not love her children except as ' they served her ambitious views. ' The fact that it was I, and not she, who had achieved the Prince's deliverance, was painful to her Majesty : alas, yes, in some degree ! ' Ball having recommenced, Grumkow whispered to me, "That the ' King was pleased with my frank kind ways to my Brother ; and not ' pleased with my Brother's cold way of returning it : Does he simulate, ' and mean still to deceive me ? Or is that all the thanks he has for ' Wilhelmina? thinks his Majesty. Go on with your sincerity, Madam ; ' and for God's sake admonish the Crown-Prince to avoid finessing !" ' Crown-Prince, when I did, in some interval of the dance, report this ' of Grumkow, and say, Why so changed and cold, then. Brother oi my ' heart ? answered. That he was still the same ; and that he had his ' reasons for what he did.' Wilhelmina continues; and cannot under stand her Crown-Prince at all : ' Next morning, by the King's order, he paid me a visit. The ' Prince, ' my Husband, ' was polite enough to withdraw, and left me ' and Sonsfeld alone with him. He gave me a recital of his misfor- ' tunes; I communicated mine to him,' — and how I had at last bar- gained to get him free again by my compliance. ' He appeared much ' discountenanced at this last part of my narrative. He returned thanks ' for the obligations 1 had laid on him, — with some caressings, which ' evidently did not proceed from, the heart. To break this conversa- ' lion, he started some indifferent topic ; and, under pretence of seeing ' my Apartment, moved into the next room, where the Prince my Hus- ' band was. Him he ran over with his eyes from head to foot, lor some ' time; then, after some constrained civilities to him, went his way.' What to make of all this? ' Madam Sonsfeld shrugged her shoulders;' no end of Madam Sonsfeld's astonishment at such a Crown-Prince. Alas, yes, poor Wilhelmina ; a Crown-Prince got into ter- rible cognisance of facts since we last met him ! Perhaps al- ready sees, not only what a Height of place is cut-out for him in this world, but also in a dim way what a solitude of soul, ii he will maintain his height ? Top of the frozen Schreckhorn ; — have you well considered such a position ! And even the way thither is dangerous, is terrible in this case. Be not too hard upon your Crown-Prince. For it is certain he loves you to the last ! Captain Dickens, who alone of all the Excellencies was not at the Wedding, — and never had believed it would be a wed- 56 CROWN-PRINCE RETRIEVED. B-oUVllI. 24th Nov. 1731. ding, but only a rumour to bring England round, — duly chro- nicles this happy reappearance of the Prince-Royal : ' about ' six, yesterday evening, as the company was dancing, — to ' the great joy and surprise of the whole Court ;' — and adds : ' This morning the Prince came to the public Parade ; where ' crowds of people of all ranks flocked to see his Royal High- • ness, and gave the most open demonstrations of pleasure.'-* Wilhelmina, these noisy tumults, not all of them delight- ful, once done, gets out of the perplexed hurlyburly, home to- wards still Baireuth, shortly after Newyear.^ ' Berlin was be- ' come as odious to me as it had once been dear. I flattered ' myself that, renouncing grandeurs, I might lead a soft and ' tranquil life in my new Home, and begin a happier year than ' the one that had just ended.' Mamma was still perverse ; but on the edge of departure Wilhelmina contrived to get a word of her Father, and privately open her heart to him. Poor Fa- ther, after all that has come and gone : ' My discourse produced its effect ; he melted into tears, could not * answer me for sobs; he explained his thoughts by his embracings of ' me. Making an effort, at length, he said: "I am in despair that I ' did not know thee. They had told me such horrible tales, I hated ' thee as much as I now love thee. If I had addressed myself direct to ' thee, I should have escaped much trouble, and thou too. But they ' hindered me from speaking; said thou wert ill-natured as the Devil, ' and wouldst drive me to extremities I wanted to avoid. Thy Mother, ' by her intriguings, is in part the cause of the misfortunes of the family; ' I have been deceived and duped on every side. But my hands are ' tied ; and though my heart is torn in pieces, I must leave these ini- ' quities unpunished !" ' — The Queen's intentions were always good, urged Wilhelmina. "Let us not enter into that detail," answered he: " what is past is past; I will try to forget it;" and assured Wilhelmina that she was the dearest to him of the family, and that he would do great things for her still, — only part of which came to effect in the sequel. " I am too sad of heart to take leave of you," concluded he: " embrace your Ilu.sband on my part; I am so overcome that I must " not see him."" And so they rolled away. Crown -Prince was back to Ciistrin again, many weeks before. Back to Ciistrin ; but under totally changed omens : his history, after that first emergence in Wilhelmina's dance, ' 23d November about six P.M.,' and appearance at Parade on the morrow (.Saturday morning), had been as follows. Monday < Despatch, 2.ilh Nov. 1731. ^ nth Jan. 1732 (Wilhehnina, ii. 2). " Wilhelmina, ii. 4; who dates iilh January 1732. Chap. VI. WILHELMINA'S WEDDING. 57 29th Feb. 1732. November 26th, there was again grand Ball, and the Prince there, not in gray this time. Ne.xt day, the Old Dessauer and all the higher Officers in Berlin petitioned, "Let us have him in the Army again, your Majesty !" Majesty consented : and so, Friday 30th, there was grand dinner at Seckendorf 's, Crown- Prince there, in soldier's uniform again ; a completely pardoned youth. His uniform is of the Goltz Regiment, Infantry: Goltz Regiment, which lies at Ruppin, — at and about, in that moory Country to the Northeast, some thirty or forty miles from Ber- lin ; — whither his destination now is. Crown-Prince had to resume his Kammer work at Ctistrin, and see the Buildings at Carzig, for a three months longer, till some arrangements in the Regiment Goltz were perfected, and finishing improvements given to it. But 'on the last day of February' (29th, 1732 being leap-year), his Royal Highness's Commission to be Colonel Commandant of said Regiment is made out ; and he proceeds, in discharge of the same, to Rup- pin, where his men lie. And so puts-off the pike-gray coat, and puts-on the military blue one," — never to quit it again, as turned out. Ruppin is a little Town, in that northwest Fehrbellin re- gion : Regiment Goltz had lain in detached quarters hitherto ; but is now to lie at Ruppin, the first Battalion of it there, and the rest within reach. Here, in Ruppin itself, or ultimately at Reinsberg in the neighbourhood, was Friedrich's abode, for the ne.xt eight years. Habitual residence : with transient excur- sions, chiefly to Berlin in Carnival time, or on other great oc- casions, and always strictly on leave ; his employment being that of Colonel of Foot, a thing requiring continual vigilance and industry in that Country. Least of all to be neglected, in any point, by one in his circumstances. He did his military duties to a perfection satisfactory even to Papa ; and achieved on his own score many other duties and improvements, tor which Papa had less value. These eight years, it is always un- derstood, were among the most important of his lire to him. ^ Preuss, i. 63. BOOK IX. LAST STAGE OF FRIEDRICH'S APPRENTICESHIP LIFE IN RUPPIN. 1732-1736. CHAPTER I. PRINCESS ELIZABETH CHRISTINA OF BRUNSWICK-BEVERN. We described the Crown-Prince as intent to comply, espe- cially in all visible external particulars, with Papa's will and pleasure ; — rto distinguish himself by real excellence in Com- mandantship of the Regiment Goltz, first of all. But before ever getting into that, there has another point risen, on which obedience, equally essential, may be still more difficult. Ever since the grand Catastrophe went off without taking Friedrich's head along with it, and there began to be hopes of a pacific settlement, question has been, Whom shall the Crown- Prince marry ? And the debates about it in the Royal breast and in Tobacco-Parliament, and rumours about it in the world at large, have been manifold and continual. In the Schulen- burg Letters we saw the Crown-Prince himself much interested, and eagerly inquisitive on that head. As was natural : but it is not in the Crown-Prince's mind, it is in the Tobacco-Parlia- ment, and the Royal breast as influenced there, that the thing must be decided. Who in the world will it be, then ? Crown-Prince himself hears now of this party, now of that. England is quite over, and the Princess Amelia sunk below the horizon. Friedrich himself appears a little piqued that Hotham carried his nose so high ; that the English would not, in those lifc-and-dcath circumstances, abate the least from their ' Both marriages or none,' — thinks they should have saved Wilhel- mina, and taken his word of honour for the rest. England Chap. I. PRINCESS OF BRUNSWICK-BEVERN. 59 Feb. 1732. is now out of his head ; — all romance is too sorrowfully swept out : and instead of the ' sacred air-cities of hope' in this high section of his history, the young man is looking into the 'mean clay hamlets of reality,' with an eye well recognising them for real. With an eye and heart already tempered to the due hardness for them. Not a fortunate result, though it was an inevitable one. We saw him flirting with the beautiful wedded Wreech ; talking to Lieutenant-General Schulenburg about marriage, in a way which shook the pipeclay of that virtuous man. He knows he would not get his choice, if he had one ; strives not to care. Nor does he, in fact, much care ; the romance being all out of it. He looks mainly to outward advantages ; to personal appearance, temper, good manners ; to ' religious principle,' sometimes rather in the reverse way (fearing an overplus rather) ; — but always to like- lihood of moneys by the match, as a very direct item. Ready command of money, he feels, will be extremely desirable in a Wife ; desirable and almost indispensable, in present strait- ened circumstances. These are the notions of this ill-situated Coelebs. The parties proposed first and last, and rumoured of in Newspapers and the idle brains of men, have been very many, — no limit to their numbers ; it may be anybody : an intending purchaser, though but possessed of sixpence, is in a sense pro- prietor of the whole Fair ! Through Schulenburg we heard his own account of them, last Autumn ; — but the far noblest of the lot was hai'dly glanced at, or not at all, on that occa- sion. The Kaiser's eldest Daughter, sole heiress of Austria and these vast Pragmatic-Sanction operations ; Archduchess Maria Theresa herself, — it is affirmed to have been Prince Eugene's often-expressed wish. That the Crown-Prince of Prussia should wed the future Empress. 1 Which would in- deed have saved immense confusions to mankind ! Nay she alone of Princesses, beautiful, magnanimous, brave, was the mate for such a Prince, — had the Good Fairies been consulted, which seldom happens : — and Romance itself might have be- come Reality in that case ; with high results to the very soul of this young Prince ! Wishes are free : and wise Eugene will have been heard, perhaps often, to express this wish; but 1 Hormayr, Allgciiichie Geschichte der Jieuesteu Zeit (Wien, 1817), i. 13 ; cited in Preuss, i. 71. 6o APPRENTICESHIP, LAST STAGE. Book ix. Feb. 1732. that must have been all. Alas, the preliminaries, political, especially religious, are at once indispensable and impossible : we have to dismiss that day-dream. A Papal-Protestant Con- troversy still exists among mankind ; and this is one penalty they pay for not having settled it sooner. The Imperial Court cannot afford its Archduchess on the terms possible in that quarter. What the Imperial Court can do is, to recommend a Niecfe of theirs, insignificant young Princess, Elizabeth Christina of Brunswick-Bevern, who is Niece to the Empress ; and may be made useful in this way, to herself and us, think the Im- perial Majesties ; — will be a new tie upon the Prussians and the Pragmatic Sanction, and keep the Alliance still surer for our Archduchess in times coming, think their Majesties. She, it is insinuated by Seckendorf in Tobacco-Parliament ; ought not she. Daughter of your Majesty's esteemed friend, — mo- dest-minded, innocent young Princess, with a Brother already betrothed in your Majesty's House, — to be the Lady ? It is probable she will. Did we inform the reader once about Kaiser Karl's young marriage adventures ; and may we, to remind him, mention them a second time ? How Imperial Majesty, some five-and- twenty years ago, then only King of Spain, asked Princess Caroline of Anspach, who was very poor, and an orphan in the world. Who at once refused, declining to think of chang- ing her religion on such a score ; — and now governs England, telegraphing with Walpole, as Queen there instead. How Karl, now Imperial Majesty, then King of Spain, next applied to Brunswick-Wolfenbiittcl ; and met with a much better re- ception there. Applied to old Anton Ulrich, reigning Duke, who writes big Novels, and does other foolish goodnatured things ; — who persuaded his Granddaughter that a change to Catholicism was nothing in such a case, that he himself should not care in the least to change. How the Granddaughter changed accordingly, went to Barcelona, and was wedded ; — and had to dun old Grandpapa, "Why don't you change, then ?" Who did change thereupon ; thinking to himself, " Plague on it, I must, then !" the foolish old Herr. He is dead ; and his Novels, in six volumes quarto, are all dead : and the Granddaughter is Kaiserinn, on those terms, a serene monotonous well-iavoured Lady, diligent in her Catholic exer- Chap. I. PRINCESS OF BRUNSWICK-REVERN. 6i Feb. 1732. cises ; of whom I never heard any evil, good rather, in her eminent serene position. Pity perhaps that she had recom- mended her Niece for this young Prussian gentleman ; whom it by no means did ' attach to the Family' so very careful about him at Vienna ! But if there lay a sin, and a punish- ment following on it, here or elsewhere, in her Imperial posi- tion, surely it is to be charged on foolish old Anton Ulrich ; not on her, poor Lady, who had never coveted such height, nor durst for her soul take the leap thitherward, till the serene old literary gentleman showed her how easy it was. Well, old Anton Ulrich is long since dead,^ and his reli- gious accounts are all settled beyond cavil ; and only the sad duty devolves on me of explaining a little what and who his rather insipid offspring are, so far as related to readers of this History. Anton Ulrich left two sons ; the elder of whom was Duke, and the younger had an Apanage, Blankenburg by name. Only this younger had children, — serene Kaiserinn that now is, one of them. The elder died childless,^ precisely a few months before the times we are now got to ; reigning Duke of Brunswick-Wolfenbiittel,'* all but certain Apanages, and does not concern us farther. To that supreme dignity the younger has now come, and his Apanage of Blankenburg and children with him ; — so that there is now only one out- standing Apanage (Bevern, not known to us yet) ; which also will perhaps get reunited, if we cared for it. Ludwig Rudolf is the name of this new sovereign Duke of Brunswick- Wolfen- biittel, or Duke in chief ; age now sixty ; has a shining, bus- tling, somewhat irregular Duchess, says Wilhelmina ; and a nose — or rather almost no nose, for sad reasons !^ Other quali- ties or accidents I know not of him, — except that he is Father of the Vienna Kaiscrimi ; Grandfather of the Princess whom Seckendorf suggests for our Friedrich of Prussia. In Ludwig Rudolf's insipid offspring our readers are unex- pectedly somewhat interested ; let readers patiently attend, therefore. He had three Daughters, never any son. Two of his Daughters, eldest and youngest, are alive still ; the middle 2 1714, age 70. Hiibner, t. 190. ■' 1731, Michaelis, i. 132. * ' W cU-iodi/is' (Hutted Camp of the Welfs), according to Etymology. ' Bruns- wick,' aj;aiii, is Sraaa's-Wick ; ' Uraun' (Brown) being an old militant VVelf in those parts, who built some lodge lor himself, as a convenience there, — Year SSo, say the uncertain old Books. Hiibner, t. 149 ; Michaelis, &c. j Wilhelmina, ii. izi. 62 APPRENTICESHIP, LAST STAGE. Book IX. Feb. 1732. one had a sad fate long ago. She married, in 171 1, Alexius the Czarowitz of Peter the Great : foolish Czarowitz, miserable and making others miserable, broke her heart by ill conduct, ill usage, in four years ; so that she died ; leaving him only a poor small Peter II., who is now dead too, and that matter ended all but the memory of it. Some accounts bear, that she did not die ; that she only pretended it, and ran and left her intolerable Czarowitz. That she wedded, at Paris, in deep obscurity, an Officer just setting-out for Louisiana ; lived many years thei'e as a thrifty soldier's wife ; returned to Paris with her Officer reduced to half-pay ; and told him,- — or told some select Official person after him, under sevenfold oath, being then a widow and necessitous, — her sublime secret. Sub- lime secret, which came thus to be known to a supremely select circle at Paris ; and was published in Books, where one still reads it. No vestige of truth in it, — except that perhaps a necessitous soldier's widow at Paris, considering of ways and means, found that she had some trace of likeness to the Pictures of this Princess, and had heard her tragic story. Ludwig Rudolf's second Daughter is dead long years ago ; nor has this fable as yet risen from her dust. Of Ludwig Rudolf's other two Daughters, we have said that one, the eldest, was the Kaiserinn ; Empress Elizabeth Christina, age now precisely forty ; with two beautiful Daughters, sublime Maria Theresa the elder of them, and no son that would live. Which last little circumstance has caused the Pragmatic Sanc- tion, and tormented universal Nature for so many years back ! Ludwig Rudolf has a youngest Daughter, also married, and a Mother in Germany, — to this day conspicuously so ; — of whom next, or rather of her Husband and Family-circle, we must say a word. Her Husband is no other than the esteemed Friend of Friedrich Wilhehn; Duke of Brunswick-Bcvern, by title; who, as a junior branch, lives on the Apanage of Bevern, as his Fa- ther did ; but is sure now to inherit the sovereignty and be Duke of Brunswick-Wolfenbiittcl at large, he or his Sons, were the present incumbent, Ludwig Rudolf, once out. Present in- cumbent, we have just intimated, is his Father-in-law ; but it is not on that ground that he looks to inlierit. He is Nephew of old Anton Uhich, Son of a younger Brother (who was also ' Bevern' in vXnton's time); and is the evident Heir-male ; old PRINCESS OF BRUNSWICK-BEVERN. ^\3 Chap. I. Feb. 1732. Anton being already fallen into the distaff, with nothing but three Granddaughters. Anton's heir will now be this Nephew : Nephew has wedded one of the Granddaughters, youngest of the Three, youngest Daughter of Ludwig Rudolf, Sovereign Duke that now is; which Lady, by the family she brought him, if no otherwise, is memorable or mentionable here, and may be called a Mother in Germany. ^ Father Bevern her Husband, Ferdinand Albert the name of him, is now just fifty, only ten years younger than his se- rene Father-in-law Ludwig Rudolf : — whom, I may as well say here, he does at last succeed, three years hence (1735), and becomes Duke of Brunswick in General, according to hope ; but only for a few months, having himself died that same year. Poor Duke ; rather a good man, by all the accounts I could hear ; though not of qualities that shone. He is at present ' Duke of Brunswick-Bevern,' — such his actual nomenclature in those ever-fluctuating Sibyl's-leaves of German History- r>ooks, Wilheimina's and the others; — expectant Duke of Brunswick in General ; much a friend of Friedrich Wilhelm. A kind of Austrian soldier he was formerly, and will again be * Anton Ulricii (1633-1714), Duke in Chief; that is, Duke of Brunswick- Wt'^-«(''/if//t/. August Wil- Ludwig Rudolf, the younger HELM, elder Son (1671, 1731, 1735), apanaged Son and Heir in Blankonburg ; DukeofBruns- (1662, 1714, w'xck - Blaukoiburg ; became 1731); had no Woljenbilttel, 1731 ; died, ist Children. March 1735. No Son: so that now the Bevern succeeded. Three Daughters : Elizabeth Christina, the Kaiserinn (1691, 1708, 1750). Charlotte Chris- Antoinette tina (1694, 1711, 1715), Ale.xius of Russia's ; had a fabulous end. Amelia (1695, 1712, 1762) ; Be- vern's Wife, —a _" Mo- ther in Ger- many." Ferdinand Albert (1636- 1687), his younger Brother apanaged in Bevern; that is, Duke of Brunswick-i>Vj'«-r«. Ferdinand Albert, eldest Son (an elder had perished, 1704, on the Schellenberg under ftlarlborough), fol- lowed in Bevern (1680, 1687- 1704, 1735); Kaiser's soldier, Friedrich Wilhelm's friend ; married his Cousin, Antoin- ette AmeHa (" Mother in Germany," as we call her). Duke in Chief, ist March i73S> on Ludwig Rudolfs decease ; died himself, 3d September same year. Born 1713, Karl the Heir (to marry our Friedrich's Sister). 1714, An- 1713, 8th tonUlrich Novem- ( Russia ; ber, Eliz- tragedy of abeth Czar I wan). Christina ( Crown- Prince's). 1718, Lud- 1721, Ferdi- 1722, 1724, wig Ernst nand (Chat- 1725, 1732, (Holland, ham's and Four oth- 1787). England's) ers ; Boys of the Seven- the young- Years War. estTwo,who were both killed in Friedrich's Wars. 64 APPRENTICESHIP, LAST STAGE. Book ix. Feb. 1732. for brief times ; General-Feldmarschall so-styled ; but is not notable in War, nor otherwise at all, except for the offspring he had by this serene Spouse of his. Insipid offspring, the impatient reader says ; but permits me to enumerate one or two of them : 1°. Karl, eldest Son ; who is sure to be Brunswick in General ; who is betrothed to Princess Cliarlotte of Pioissia, — ' a satirical creature, she, fonder of my Prince than of him,' Wilhelmina thinks. The wed- ding nevertheless took effect. Bnmswick in General duly fell in, first to the Father; then, in a few months more, to Karl with his Charlotte: and from them proceeded, in due time, another Karl, of whom we shall hear in this History; — and of whom all the world heard much in the French Revolution Wars; in 1792, and still more tragically afterwards. Shot, to death or worse, at the Battle of Jena, October 1806; 'battle lost before it was begun,' — such the strategic history they give of it. He peremptorily ordered the French Revolution to suppress itself; and that was the answer the French Revolution made him. From this Karl, what new Queens Caroline of England and portentous Dukes of Bruns- wick, sent upon their travels through the anarchic world, profitable only to Newspapers, we need not say ! — 2°. Anton Ulrich; named after his august Great-Grandfather; does not write novels like him. At present a young gentleman of eighteen; goes into Russia before long, hoping to beget Czars ; which issues dread- fully for himself and the potential Czars he begot. The reader has heard of a potential "Czar Iwan, " violently done to death in his room, one dim moonlight night of 1764, in tlie Fortress of Schliisselburg, middle of Lake Ladoga; misty moon looking down on the stone battlements, on the melancholy waters, and saying nothing. — But let us not anticipate. 3° Elizabeth Christina ; to us more important than any of them. Namesake of the Kaiserinn, her august Aunt; age now seventeen; in- sipid fine-coinplexioned young lady, who is talked of for the Bride of our Crown-Prince. Of whom the reader will hear more. Crown-Prince fears she is ' too religious,' — and will have '■cagots' about her (solemn persons in black, highly unconscious how little wisdom they have), who may be troublesome. 4°. A merry young Boy, now ten, called Ferdinand ; M'ith whom England within the next thirty years will ring, for some time, loud enough : the great " Prince Ferdinand" himself, — under whom the Mar- quis of Granby and others became great ; Chatham superintending it. This really was a respectable gentleman, and did considerable things, — a Trisinegistus in comparison with the Duke of Cumberland whom he succeeded. A cheerful, singularly-polite, modest, well-conditioned man withal. To be slightly better known to us, if we live. He at pre- .scnt is a Boy of ten, chasing the thistle's beard. 5". Three other sons, all soldiers, two 01 them younger than Fer- dinand; whose names were in the gazettes down to a late period ;— Chap.T. TRINCESS OF RRUNSWICK-BEVERN. 65 Feb. 1733. whom we shall ignore in tliis place. The last of them was marched out of Holland, \\here he had long l)een Commander-in-chief on rather Tory principles, in the troubles of 1787. Others of them we shall sec storming forward on occasion, valiantly meeting death in the field of fight, all conspicuously brave of character ; but this shall be enough of them at present. It is of these that Ludwig Rudolf's youngest daughter, the serene Ferdinand Albert's wife, is Mother in Germany; highly conspicuous in their day. If the question is put, it must be owned they are all rather of the insipid type. Nothing but a kind of albuminous simplicity noticeable in them ; no wit, ori- ginality, brightness in the way of uttered intellect. If it is asked, How came they to the least distinction in this world ? — the answer is not immediately apparent. But indeed they are Welf of the Welfs, in this respect as in others. One asks, with increased wonder, noticing in the Welfs generally nothing but the same albuminous simplicity, and poverty rather than opulence of uttered intellect, or of qualities that shine, How the Welfs came to play such a part, for the last thousand years, and still to be at it, in conspicuous places ? Reader, I have observed that uttered intellect is not what permanently makes way, but ////uttered. Wit, logical brilliancy, spiritual effulgency, true or false, — how precious to idle man- kind, and to the Newspapers and History-Books, even when it is false : Avhile, again. Nature and Practical Fact care next to nothing for it in comparison, even when it is true ! Two silent qualities you will notice in these Welfs, modern and ancient ; which Nature much values : First, consummate hu- man Courage ; a noble, perfect, and as it were unconscious superiority to fear. And then secondly, much weight of mind, a noble not too conscious Sense of what is Right and Not Right, I have found in some of them ; — which means mostly weight, or good gravitation, good observance of the perpen- dicular ; and is called justice, veracity, high-honour, and other such names. These are fine qualities indeed, especially with an ' albuminous simplicity' as vehicle to them. If the Welfs had not much articulate intellect, let us guess they made a good use, not a bad or indifferent, as is commoner, of what they had. VOL. III. 66 APPRENTICESHIP, LAST STAGE. Hook ix. Feb. 1732. Who his Majesty's Choice is ; and what the Crown-Frince thinks of if. Princess Elizabeth Christina, the insipid Brunswick speci- men, backed by Seckendorf and Vienna, proves on considera- tion the desirable to Friedrich Wilhelm in this matter. But his Son's notions, who as yet knows her only by rumour, do not go that way. Insipidity, triviality ; the fear of ' cagotage' and frightful fellows in black supremely unconscious what blockheads they are, haunts him a good deal. And as for any money coming, — her sublime Aunt the Kaiserinn never had much ready-money ; one's resources on that side are likely to be exiguous. He would prefer the Princess of Mecklenburg, Semi-Russian Catharine or Anna, of whom we have heard ; would prefer the Princess of Eisenach (whose name he does not know rightly) ; thinks there are many Princesses prefer- able. Most of all he would prefer, what is well known of him in Tobacco-Parliament, but known to be impossible, this long W'hile back, to go upon a round of travel, — as for instance the Prince of Lorraine is now doing, — and look about him a little. These candid considerations the Crown-Prince earnestly suggests to Grumkow, and the secret committee of Tobacco- Parliament ; earnestly again and again, in his Correspondence with that gentleman, which goes on very brisk at present. ' Much of it lost,' we hear ; — but enough, and to spare, is saved ! Not a beautiful correspondence : the tone of it shal- low, hard of heart ; tragically ihppant, especially on the Crown- Prince's part ; now and then even a touch of the hypocritical from him, slight touch and not with will : alas, what can the poor young man do ? Grumkow, — whose ground, I think, is never quite so secure since that Nosti business, — professes ardent attachment to the real interests of the Prince; and docs solidly advise him of what is feasible, what not, in head- quarters : very exemplary ' attachment ;' credible to what length, the Prince well enough knows. And so the Corre- spondence is unbcautiful ; not very descriptive even, — for poor P'riedrich is considerably under mask, while he writes to that address ; and of Grumkow himself we want no more 'descrip- tion ;' and is, in fact, on its own score, an avoidable article rather than otherwise ; though perhaps the reader, for a poor Chap. I. PRINCESS OF BRUNSWICK-BEVERN. 67 Feb. 1732. involved Crown-Prince's sake, will wish an exact Excerpt or two before we quite dismiss it. Towards turning-off the Brunswick speculation, or turn- ing-on the Mecklenburg or Eisenach or any other in its stead, the Correspondence naturally avails nothing. Seckendorf has his orders from Vienna : Grumkow has his pension, — his creambowl duly set, — for helping Seckendorf. Though angels pleaded, not in a tone of tragic flippancy, but with the voice of breaking hearts, it would be to no purpose. The Imperial Majesties have ordered, Marry him to Brunswick, ' bind him the better to our House in time coming ;' nay the Royal mind at Potsdam gravitates, of itself, that way, after the first hint is given. The Imperial will has become the Paternal one ; no answer but obedience. What Grumkow can do will be, if pos- sible, to lead or drive the Crown-Prince into obeying smoothly, or without breaking of harness again. Which, accordingly, is pretty much the sum of his part in this unlovely Correspond- ence : the geeho-ing of an expert wagoner, who has got a fiery young Arab thoroughly tied into his dastard sandcart, and has to drive him by voice, or at most by slight c7-ack of whip ; and does it. Can we hope, a select specimen or two of these Docu- ments, not on Grumkow's part, or for Grumkow's unlovely sake, may now be acceptable to the reader ? A Letter or two picked from that large stock, in a legible state, will show us Father and Son, and how that tragic matter went on, better than descrip- tion could. Papa's Letters to the Crown-Prince during that final Ciis- trin period, when Carzig and Himmelstadt were going on, and there was such progress in Economics, are all of hopeful rug- gedly affectionate tenor ; and there are a good few of them : style curiously rugged, intricate, headlong ; and a strong sub- stance of sense and worth tortuously visible everywhere. Let- ters so delightful to the poor retrieved Crown-Prince then and there ; and which are still almost pleasant reading to third- parties, once you introduce grammar and spelling. This is one exact specimen ; most important to the Prince and us. Sud- denly, one night, by estafette, his Majesty, meaning nothing but kindness, and grateful to Seckendorf and Tobacco-Parlia- ment for such an idea, proposes, — in these terms (merely re- duced to English and the common spelling) ; 68 APPRENTICESHIP, LAST STAGE. n. -k ix. 4lh Feb. 1732. ' To the Cfown-Prince at Ciistrin (from Papa). 'Potsdam, 4th February 1732. ' My dear Son Fritz, — I am very glad you need no more physic. ' But you must have a care of yourself, some days yet, for the severe ' weather ; M'hich gives me and evei"ybody colds ; so pray be on your ' guard [nehmet Etich hiibsch in Acht). ' You know, my dear Son, that when my children are obedient, I ' love them much : so, when you were at Berlin, I from my heart for- ' gave you everything ; and from that Berlin time, since I saw you, have ' thought of nothing but of your well-being and how to establish you, ' — not in the Army only, but also with a right Stepdaughter, and so ' see you married in my lifetime. You may be well persuaded I have ' had the Princesses of Germany taken survey of, so far as possible, and ' examined \ij trusty people, what their conduct is, their education and ' so on : and so a Princess has been found, the Eldest one of Bevern, who ' is well brought-up, modest and retiring, as women ought to be. ' You will without delay {cito) \\'rite me your mind on this. I have ' purchased the Von Katsch House; the Feldmarschall,' old Wartens- leben, poor Katte's grandfather, 'as Governor' of Berlin, 'will get that ' to live in : and his Government House' I will have made-new for you, ' and furnish it all ; and give you enough to keep house yourself there ; ' and will command you into the Army, April coming' (which is quite a subordinate story, your Majesty!). ' The Princess is not ugly, nor beautiful. You must mention it to ' no mortal; — write indeed to Mamma {dcr Mania) that I have written ' to you. And when you shall have a Son, I will let you go on your ' Travels, — wedding, however, cannot be before winter next. Menn- ' while I will try and contrive opportunity that you see one anothei^, a ' few times, in all honour, yet so that you get acquainted with her. .She ' is a god-fearing creature (gotlesfiirchdgcs AIciisc/i), M'hicli is all in all ; ' will suit herself to you' (be coniportable to you) ' as she does to the ' Parents-in-law. ' God give his blessing to it ; and bless You and your Posterity, and * keep Thee as a good Christian. And have God always before your ' eyes; — and don't believe that damnable Particular ih-te edition is, Paris, 1770, 4 vols. 4to) ; at Ruppin, and afterwards, a chief favourite with Friedrich. '^ FOrsicr, iii. 114 (Scckcndorf to Prince Eugene). Chap. II. SMALL INCIDENTS AT RUPPIN. 83 April 1732. tioii at the grand reviews ;— is very industrious now and after- wards to get tall recruits, as a dainty to Papa. Knows that nothing in Nature is so sure of conciliating that strange old gentleman ; corresponds, accordingly, in distant quarters ; lays out, now and afterwards, sums far too heavy for his means upon tall recruits for Papa. But it is good to conciliate in that quarter, by every method, and at every expense ; — Argus of Tobacco-Parhamcnt still watching one there ; and Rumour needing to be industriously dealt with, difficult to keep down. Such, so far as we can gather, is the general figure of Fried- rich's life at Ruppin. Specific facts of it, anecdotes about it, are few in those dim Books ; arc uncertain as to truth, and without importance whether true or not. For all his gravity and Colonelship, it would appear the old spirit of frolic has not cjuitted him. Here are two small incidents, pointing that way ; which stand on record ; credible enough, though vague and without importance otherwise. Incident fwst is to the following feeble effect ; indisputable though extremely unmo- mentous : Regiment Goltz, it appears, used to have gold trim- mings ; the Colonel Crown-Prince petitioned that they might be of silver, which he liked better. Papa answers, Yes. Re- giment Goltz gets its new regimentals done in silver; the Colo- nel proposes they shall solemnly btirn their old regimentals. And they do it, the Officers of them, sub dio, perhaps in the Prince's garden, stripping successively in the ' Temple' there, with such degree of genial humour, loud laughter, or at least boisterous mock-solemnity, as may be in them. This is a true incident of the Prince's historj^ though a small one. Incident second is of slightly more significance ; and inti- mates, not being quite alone in its kind, a questionable habit or method the Crown-Prince must have had of dealing with Clerical Persons hereabouts when they proved troublesome. Here are no fewer than three such Persons, or Parsons, of the Ruppin Country, who got mischief by him. How the first gave offence shall be seen, and how he was punished : offences of the second and the third we can only guess to ha.ve been perhaps pulpit-rebukes of said punishments : perhaps general preaching against military levities, want of piety, nay open sinfulness, in thoughtless young men with cockades. Whereby the thoughtless young men were again driven to think of noc- turnal charivari ? We will give the story in Ur. Biisching's 84 APPRENTICESHIP, LAST STAGE. Book IX. April 1732. own words, who looks before and after to great distances, in a way worth attending to. The Herr Doctor, an endless Collec- tor and Compiler on all manner of subjects, is very authentic always, and does not want for natural sense : but he is also very crude, — and here and there not far from stupid, such his continual haste, and slobbery manner of working-up those Hundred and odd Volumes of his :* ' The sanguine-choleric temperament of Friedrich, ' says this Doc- tor, 'drove him, in his youth, to sensual enjoyments and wild amuse- ' ments of different kinds ; in his middle age, to fiery enterprises ; and ' in his old years to decisions and actions of a rigorous and vehement ' nature ; yet so that the primary form of utterance, as seen in his ' youth, never altogether ceased with him. There are people still ' among us (1788) who have had, in their own experience, knowledge ' of his youthful pranks ; and yet more are living, who know that he ' himself, at table, would gaily recount what merry strokes were done ' by him, or by his order, in those young years. To give an instance ' or two. ' While he was at Neu-Ruppin as Colonel of the Infantry Regiment ' there, the Chaplain of it sometimes waited upon him about the time ' of dinner, — having been used to dine occasionally with the former ' Colonel. The Crown-Prince, however, put him always off, did not ' ask him to dinner ; spoke contemptuously of him in presence of the ' Officers. The Chaplain was so inconsiderate, he took to girding at the ' CrowTi-Prince in his Sermons. " Once on a time," preached he, one ' day, " there was Herod who had Herodias to dance before him ; and ' he, — he gave her John the Baptist's head for her pains !'" This Hei-od, Biisching says, was understood to mean, and meant, the Crown-Prince ; Herodias, the merry corps of Officers who made sport for him ; yohn the Baptist's head was no other than the Chaplain not invited to dinner ! ' To punish him for such a sally, the Crown - Prince with the young ' Officers of his Regiment went, one night, to the Chaplain's house,' somewhere hard by, with cow's-grass adjoining to it, as we see : and ' first, they knocked-in the windows of his sleeping-room upon him' (///«0('-windows, glass not entirely broken, we may hope) ; ' next there 'were crackers' {ScJnudrmcr, 'enthusiasts,' so to speak!) 'thrown-in * upon him; and thereby the Chaplain, and his poor Wife,' more or less in an interesting condition, poor woman, ' were driven out into the ' court-yard, and at last into the dung-heap there;' — and so left, with their Head on a Charger to that terrible extent I That is BUsching's version of the story; no doubt substan- tially correct ; of which there are traces in other quarters, — ^ See his Aiitoblogiapliy, which forms Bcytriigc, B, vi. (the biggest and last Volume). Chnp. II. SMALL INCIDENTS AT RUPPIN. 85 April 1732. for it went farther than Ruppin ; and the Crown-Prince had like to have got into trouble from it. " Here is piety !" said Rumour, carrying it to Tobacco-Parliamenb. The Crown- Prince plaintively assures Grumkow that it was the Officers, and that they got punished for it. A likely story, the Prince's ! ' When King Friedrich, in Ins old days, recounted this after dinner, ' in his merry tone, he was well pleased that the guests, and even the ' pages and valets behind his back, laughed aloud at it.' Not a pious old King, Doctor, still less an orthodox one ! The Doctor continues : ' In a like style, at Nauen, where part of his regiment lay, he had, — ' by means ef Herr von der Groben, his First-Lieutenant,' much a comrade of his, as we otherwise perceive, — ' the Diaconus of Nauen ' and his Wife hunted out of bed, and thrown into terror of their lives, ' one night :' — offence of the Diaconus not specified. ' Nay he himself ' once pitched his goldheaded stick through Salpius the Church Inspec- ' tor's window, ' — offence again not specified, or perhaps merely for a little artillery practice? — 'and the throw was so dextrous that it merely ' made a round hole in the glass : stick was lying on the floor ; and th^ ' Prince,' on some excuse or other, 'sent for it next morning.' ' Mar- ' graf Heinrich of Schwedt,' continues the Doctor, very trustworthy on points of fact, 'was a diligent helper in such operations. Kaiserling, ' whom we shall hear of, 'First-Lieutenant von der Groben,' these were prime hands; 'Lieutenant Buddenbrock' (old Feldmarschall's son) ' used, in his old days, when himself grown high in rank and dining ' with the King, to be appealed to as witness for the truth of these ' stories.'* These are the two Incidents at Ruppin, in such light as they have. And these are all. Opulent History yields from a ton of broken nails these two brass farthings, and shuts her pocket on us again. A Crown-Prince given to frolic, among other things ; though aware that gravity would beseem him better. Much gay bantering humour in him, cracklings, radia- tions, — which he is bound to keep well under cover, in present circumstances. 5 Biisching, Beytra^e zu der Lebensgesckichte denk7i>iirdiger Personen, v. 19-21. Vol. v., — wholly occupied with Friedrich II. Kiitg of Prussia (Halle, 1788), — is ac- cessible in French and other languages ; many details, and (as Biisching's wont is) few or none not authentic, are to be found in it ; a very great secret spleen against Friedrich is also traceable, — for which the Doctor may have had his reasons, not obligatory upon readers of the Doctor. The truth is, Friedrich never took the least special notice of him : merely employed and promoted him, when expedient for both parties ; and he really was a man of considerable worth, in an extremely crude form. 86 APPRENTICESHIP, LAST STAGE. Book ix. Feb. -April 1732. CHAPTER III. THE SALZDURGERS. For three j'cars past there has been much rumour over Germany, of a strange affair going on in the remote Austrian quarter, down in Salzburg and its fabulous Tyrolese valleys. Salzburg, city and territory, has an Archbishop, not theoretic- ally Austrian, but sovereign Prince so-styled ; it is from him and his orthodoxies, and pranks with his sovereign crosier, that the noise originates. Strange rumour of a body of the popula- tion discovered to be Protestant among the remote Mountains, and getting miserably ill-used, by the Right Reverend Father in those parts. Which rumour, of a singular, romantic, reli- gious interest for the general Protestant world, proves to be but too well founded. It has come forth in the form of practical complaint to the Corpus Eva}igelicontm at the Diet, without result from the Corpus ; complaint to various persons ; — in fine, to his Majest}* Friedrich Wilhelm, with result. With result at last; actual 'Emigration of the Salzburgers:' and Germany, -^in these very days while the Crown-Prince is at Berlin betrothing himself, and Franz of Lorraine witnessing the exercitia and wonders there, — sees a singular phenomenon of a touching idyllic nature going on ; and has not yet quite forgotten it in our days. Salzburg Emigration was all in mo- tion, flowing steadily onwards, by various routes, towards Ber- lin, at the time the Betrothal took place; and seven weeks after that event, when the Crown-Prince had gone to Ruppin, and again could only hear of it, the first Instalment of Emigrants arrived bodily at the Gates of Berlin, ' 30th April, at four in the afternoon ;' Majesty himself and all the world going out to witness it, with something of a poetic, almost of a psalmist feeling, as well as with a practical on the part of his Majesty. First Instalment this ; copiously followed by others, all that year ; and flowing on, in smaller rills and drippings, for several years more, till it got completed. A notable phenomenon, full of lively picturesque and other interest to Brandenburg and Germany ; — which was not forgotten by the Crown-Prince in coming years, as we shall transiently find ; nay which all Ger- many still remembers, and even occasionally sings. Of which this is in brief the history. Chap. III. THE SALZBURGERS, ^7 Feb. -April 1732. The Salzburg Country, northeastern slope of the Tyrol (Donau draining that side of it, Etschor Adige the Italian side), is celebrated by the Tourist for its airy beauty, rocky moun- tains, smooth green valleys, and swift-rushing streams ; perhaps some readers have wandered to Bad-Gastein, or Ischl, in these nomadic summers ; have looked into Salzburg, Berchtesgaden, and the Bavarian-Austrian boundary-lands ; seen the wooden- clock makings, salt-works, toy-manufactures, of those simple people in their slouch-hats ; and can bear some testimony to the phenomena of Nature there. Salzburg is the Archbishop's City, metropolis of his bit of sovereignty that then was.^ A romantic City, far off among its beautiful Mountains, shadowing itself in the Salza River, which rushes down into the Inn, into the Donau, now becoming great with the tribute of so many valleys. Salz- burg we have not known hitherto except as the fabulous rest- ing-place of Kaiser Barbarossa : but we are now slightly to see it in a practical light ; and mark how the memory of Fricdrich Wilhelm makes an incidental lodgment for itself there. It is well known there was extensive Protestantism once in those countries. Prior to the Thirty-Years War, the fair chance was, Austria too would all become Protestant ; an extensive minority among all ranks of men in Austria too, definable as the serious intelligence of mankind in those countries, having clearly adopted it, whom the others were sure to follow. In all ranks of men ; only not in the highest rank, which was pleased rather to continue Official and Papal. Highest rank had its Thirty-Years War, ' its sleek Fathers Lammerlein and Hyacinth ' in Jesuit serge, its terrible Fathers Wallenstein in chain-arm- ' our ;' and, by working late and early then and afterwards, did manage at length to trample-out Protestantism, — theyknowwith what advantage by this time. Trample-out Protestantism ; or drive it into remote nooks, where under sad conditions it might protract an unnoticed existence. In the Imperial Free-Towns, Ulm, Augsburg, and the like. Protestantism continued, and un- der hard conditions contrives to continue: but in the country ' Tolemble description of it in the Cnron Riesbcck's Travels through Germany (London, 1787, Translation by Maty, 3 vols. 8vo), i. 124-222; — whose details other- wise, on this Emigration business, are of no authenticity or value. A kind of Play- actor and miscellaneous Newspaper-man in that time (not so opulent to his class as ours is} ; who takes the title of ' Baron' on this occasion of coming-out with a Book 01 Imaginary ' Travels' Had personally lived, practising the miscellaneous arts, about Lintz and Salzburg, — and may be heard on the look of the Country, if on little else. 88 APPRENTICESHIP, LAST STAGE. Book ix. Feb.-April 1732. parts, except in unnoticed nooks, it is extinct. Salzburg Country is one of those nooks ; an extensive Crypto-Protestantism lodg- ing, under the simple slouch-hats, in the remote valleys there. Protestantism peaceably kept concealed, hurting nobody ; whole- somely forwarding the wooden-clock manufacture, and arable or grazier husbandries, of those poor people. More harmless sons of Adam, probably, did not breathe the vital air, than those dissentient Salzburgers ; generation after generation of them giving offence to no creature. Successive Archbishops had known of this Crypto-Protes- tantism, and in remote periods had made occasional slight at- tempts upon it ; but none at all for a long time past. All attempts that way, as ineffectual for any purpose but stirring- up strife, had been discontinued for many generations ;2 and the Crypto-Protestantism was again become a mythical romantic object, ignored by Official persons. However, in 1727, there came a new Archbishop, one " Firmian," Count Firmian by secular quality, of a strict lean character, zealous rather than wise ; who had brought his orthodoxies with him in a rigid and very lean form. Right Reverend Firmian had not been long in Salzburg till he smelt-out the Crypto-Protestantism, and determined to haul it forth from the mythical condition into the practical; and in fact, to see his law-beagles there worry it to death as they ought. Hence the rumours that had risen over Germany, in 1729: Law-terriers penetrating into human cottages in those remote Salzburg valleys, smelling-out some German Bible or devout Book, making lists of Bible-reading cottagers ; haling them to the Right Reverend Father-in-God ; thence to prison, since they would not undertake to cease reading. With fine, with confiscation, tribulation : for the peaceable Salzburgers, respect- ful creatures, doffing their slouch-hats almost to mankind in general, were entirely obstinate in that matter of the Bible. " Cannot, your Reverence ; must not, dare not !" and went to prison or whithersoever rather ; a wide cry rising, Let us sell our possessions and leave Salzburg then, according to Treaty of Westphalia, Article so-and-so. "Treaty of Westphalia ? Leave Salzburg?" shrieked the Right Reverend Father: "Are we getting into open mutiny, then? Open extensive mutiny!" shrieked he. Borrowed a couple of Austrian regiments, — Kaiser ' IJilchholz, i. 148-151 Chap. iir. THE SALZBURGERS. 89 Feb. -April 1732. and we always on the plcasantcst terms ; — and marched the most refractory of his Salzburgers over the frontiers (retaining their properties and famihes) ; whereupon noise rose louder and louder. Refractory Salzburgers sent Deputies to the Diet ; appealed, complained to the Corpus Evangelicorntn, Treaty of Westphalia in hand, — without result. Corpus, having verified matters, com- plained to the Kaiser, to the Right Reverend Father. The Kaiser, intent on getting his Pragmatic Sanction through the Diet, and anxious to offend nobody at present, gave good words ; but did nothing: the Right Reverend Father answered a Let- ter or two from the Corpus ; then said at last. He wished to close the Correspondence, had the honour to be, — and ans- wered no farther, when written to. Corpus was without result. So it lasted through 1730; rumour, which rose in 1729, wax- ing ever louder into practicable or impracticable shape, through that next year ; tribulation increasing in .Salzburg ; and noise among mankind. In the end of 1730, the Salzburgers sent Two Deputies to Friedrich Wilhelm at Berlin ; solid-hearted, thick- soled men, able to answer for themselves, and give real account of Salzburg and the phenomena : this brought matters into a practicable state. " Are you actual Protestants, the Treaty of Westphalia applicable to you ? Not mere fanatic mystics, as Right Re- verend Firmian asserts ; protectible by no Treaty?" That was Friedrich Wilhelm's first question ; and he set his two chief Berlin Clergymen, learned Roloff one of them, a divine of much fame, to catechise the two Salzburg Deputies, and report upon the point. Their Report, dated Berlin, 30th November 1730, with specimens of the main questions, I have read ;■"' and can fully certify, along with Roloff and friend. That here are ortho- dox Protestants, apparently of very pious peaceable nature, suffering hard wrong ; — orthodox beyond doubt, and covered by the Treaty of Westphalia, Whereupon his Majesty dismisses them with assurance, " Return, and say there shall be help !" —and straightway lays hand on the business, strong swift steady hand as usual, with a view that way. Salzburg being now a clear case, Friedrich Wilhelm writes to the Kaiser ; to the King of England, King of Denmark ; — orders preparations to be made in Preussen, vacant messuages " Fassmann, pp, 446-448. 90 APPRENTICESHIP, LAST STAGE. Book ix. Feb. -April 1732. to be surveyed, moneys to be laid up ; — bids his man at the Regensburg Diet signify. That unless this thing is rectified, his Prussian Majesty will see himself necessitated to take effec- tual steps : ' reprisals' the first step, according to the old me- thod of his Prussian Majesty. Rumour of the Salzburg Pro- testants rises higher and higher. Kaiser intent on conciliating every Corpus, Evangelical and other, for his Pragmatic Sanc- tion's sake, admonishes Right Reverend Firmian ; intimates at last to him. That he will actually have to let those poor people emigrate if they demand it ; Treaty of Westphalia being express. In the end of 1731 it has come thus far. "Emigrate, says your Imperial Majesty? Well, they shall emigrate," answers Firmian; "the s^ooner the better !" And straightway, in the dead of winter, marches, in convenient divi- sions, some Nine hundred of them over the frontiers: "Go about your business, then ; emigrate — to the Old One, if you like!" — "And our properties, our goods and chattels?" ask they. — " Be thankful you have kept your skins. Emigrate, I say !" And the poor Nine hundred had to go out, in the rigour of winter, ' hoary old men among them, and women coming near their time ;' and seek quarters in the wide world mostly unknown to them. Trulj^ Firmian is an orthodox Herr ; ac- quainted with the laws of fair usage and the time of day. The sleeping Barbarossa does not awaken upon him within the Hill here : — but in the Roncalic Fields, long ago, I should not have liked to stand in his shoes ! Friedrich Wilhelm, on this procedure at Salzburg, intimates to his Halberstadt and Minden Cathohc gentlemen. That their Establishments must be locked up, and incomings suspended; that they can apply to the Right Reverend Firmian upon it ; — and bids his man at Regensburg signify to the Diet that such is the course adopted here. Right Reverend Firmian has to hold his hand ; finds both that there shall be Emigration, and that it must go forward on human terms, not inhuman ; and that in fact the Treaty of Westphalia will have to guide it, not he henceforth. Those poor ousted Salzburgers cower into the Bavarian cities, till the weather mend, and his Prussian Ma- jesty's arrangements be complete for their brethren and them. His Prussian Majesty has been maturing his plans, all this while; — gathering moneys, getting lands ready. We saw him hanging Schlubhut in the autumn of 1731, who had peculated Jhap. HI. THE SALZBURGERS. 91 Feb. -April 1732. from said moneys; and surveying Preussen, under storms of thunder and rain on one occasion. Preussen is to be the place for these people ; Tilsit and Memel region, same where the big Fight of Tannenberg and ruin of the Teutsch Ritters took place : in that fine fertile Country there are homes got ready for this Emigration out of Salzburg. Long ago, at the beginning of this Historj^ did not the reader hear of a pestilence in Prussian Lithuania ? Pestilence in old King Friedrich's time; for which the then Crown-Prince, now Majesty Friedrich Wilhelm, vainly solicited help from the Treasury, and only brought about partial change of Ministry and no help. ' Fifty-two Towns' were more or less entirely depopulated; hundreds of thousands of fertile acres fell to waste again, the hands that had ploughed them being swept away. The new Majesty, so soon as ever the Swedish War was got rid of, took this matter diligently in hand ; built-up the fifty- two ruined Towns; issued Proclamations once and again (Years 1719, 1721), to the Wetterau, to Switzerland, Saxony, Schwa- ben ;* inviting Colonists to come, and, on favourable terms, till and reap there. His terms are favourable, well-considered ; and are honestly kept. He has a fixed set of terms for Colo- nists: their road-expenses thither, so much a day allowed each travelling soul; homesteads, ploughing implements, cattle, land, await them at their journey's end ; their rent and services, ac- curately specified, are light not heavy ; and ' immunities' from this and that are granted them, for certain years, till they get well nestled. Excellent arrangements : and his Majesty has, in fact, got about 20,000 families in that way. And still there is room for thousands more. So that if the tyrannous Firmian took to tribulating Salzburg in that manner. Heaven had pro- vided remedies and a Prussian Majesty. Heaven is very opu- lent; has alchemy to change the ugliest substances into beau- tifulest. Privately to his Majesty, for months back, this Salzburg Emigration is a most manageable matter. Manage well, it will be a godsend to his Majesty, and fit, as by preestablished har- mony, into the ancient Prussian sorrow ; and ' two afflictions Avell put together shall become a consolation,' as the proverb promises ! Go along then. Right Reverend Firmian, with your Emigration there: only no foul-play in it, — or Halberstadt and Minden get locked: — for the rest of the matter we will undertake. * Buchholz, i. 14S. 92 APPRENTICESHIP, LAST STAGE. Book ix, Feb. -April 1732. And SO, February 2d, 1732, Friedrich Wilhelm's Procla- mation^ flew abroad over the world ; brief and business-like, cheering to all but Firmian ; — to this purport : ' Come, ye poor ' Salzburgers, there are homes provided for you. Apply at ' Regensburg, at Halle : Commissaries are appointed ; will ' take charge of your long march and you. Be kind, all Chris- ' tian German Princes : do not hinder them and me.' And in a few days farther, still early in February (for the matter is all ready before proclaiming), an actual Prussian Commissary hangs out his announcements and officialities at Donauworth, old City known to us, within reach of the Salzburg Boundaries ; collects, in a week or two, his first lot of Emigrants, near a thousand strong ; and fairly takes the road with them. A long road and a strange : I think, above five hundred miles before we get to Halle, within Prussian land ; and then seven hundred more to our place there, in the utmost East. Men, women, infants and hoary grandfathers are here ; — most of their property sold, — still on ruinous conditions, think of it, your Majesty. Their poor bits of preciosities and heirlooms they have with them ; made up in succinct bundles, stowed on ticketed baggage-wains ; ' some have their own poor cart and ' horse, to carry the too old and the too young, those that can- ' not walk.' A pilgrimage like that of the Children of Israel: such a pilgrim caravan as was seldom heard of in our Western Countries. Those poor succinct bundles, the making of them up and stowing of them ; the pangs of simple hearts, in those remote native valleys ; the tears that were not seen, the cries that were addressed to God only: and then at last the actual turning-out of the poor caravan, in silently practical condition, staff in hand, no audible complaint heard from it ; ready to march ; practically marching here : — which of us can think of it without emotion, sad, and yet in a sort blessed ! Every Emigrant man has four groschen a day (fourpence odd) allowed him for road expenses, every woman three gro- schen, every child two : and regularity itself, in the shape of Prussian Commissaries, presides over it. Such marching of the Salzburgers ; host after host of them, by various routes, from February onwards ; above Seven thousand of them this year, and Ten thousand more that gradually followed, — was heard of at all German firesides, and in all European lands. •> Copy of it in Mauvillon, February 1732, ii. 311. Cimp. in. THE SALZBURGERS. 93 Feb. -April 1732. A phenomenon much filling the general ear and imagination ; especially at the first emergence of it. We will give from poor old authentic Fassmann, as if caught-up by some sudden photo- graph apparatus, a rude but undeniable glimpse or two into the actuality of this business : the reader will in that way suf- ficiently conceive it for himself. Glimpseyfrj/ is of an Emigrant Party arriving, in the cold February days of 1732, at Nordlingen, Protestant Free-Town in Bavaria : Three hundred of them ; first section, I think, of those Nine hundred who were packed away unceremoniously by Firmian last winter, and have been wandering about Ba- varia, lodging 'in Kaufbeuern' and various preliminary Towns, till the Prussian arrangements became definite. Prussian Com- missaries are, by this time, got to Donauworth ; but these poor Salzburgers are ahead of them, wandering under the voluntary- principle as yet. Nordlingen, in Bavaria, is an old Imperial Free-Town ; Protestantism not suppressed there, as it has been all round ; scene of some memorable fighting in the Thirty- Years War, especially of a bad defeat to the Swedes and Bern- hard of Weimar, the worst they had in the course of that bad business. The Salzburgers are in number Three hundred and thirty-one; time, 'first days of February 1732, weather very cold and raw.* The charitable Protestant Town has been ex- pecting such an advent: 'Two chief Clergymen, and the Schoolmaster and Scholars, with ' some hundreds of citizens and many young people, went out to meet ' them ; there, in the open field, stood the Salzburgers, with their wives ' and their little ones, with their bullock-carts and baggage-wains,' pil- griming towards unknown parts of the Earth. ' "Come in, ye blessed * of the Lord ! Why stand ye without ?" said the Parson solemnly, by ' way of welcome ; and addressed a Discourse to them,' devout and yet human, true every word of it, enough to draw tears from any Fassmann that were there; — Fassmann and we not far from weeping without words. ' Thereupon they ranked themselves two and two, and marched * into the Town,' straight to the Church, I conjecture, Town all out to participate ; 'and there the two reverend gentlemen successively ad- ' dressed them again, from appropriate texts : Text of the first reverend ' gentleman was. And every one that hath forsaken houses, or brethren, ' or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for my ' flame's sake, shall receive an hundredfold, and shall inherit everlasting ' life.'^ Text of the second was, Notu the Lord hail said unto Abraham, * Get thee out of thy country, and frovi thy kindred, and from thy Jather's Matthew .xi.\. 29. 94 APPRENTICESHIP, LAST STAGE. Book ix. Feb. -April 1732. ' house, unto a land that I will sJlo'm thee.^^ Excellent texts; well han- dled, let us hope, — especially with brevity. 'After which the strangers ' were distributed, some into public-houses, others taken home by the ' citizens to lodge. ' Out of the Spital there was distributed to each person, for the first ' three days, a half-pound of flesh-meat, bread, and a measure of beer. ' The remaining days they got in money six ci-eiitzers (two pence) each, ' and bi-ead. On Sunday, at the Church-doors there was a collection : ' no less than eight hundred ,i,'//M'«' (80/. ; population, say, three thou- sand) 'for this object. At Sermon they were put into the central part ' of the Church, ' all Nordlingen lovingly encompassing them ; ' and ' were taught in two sermons, ' texts not given, ' IV/iat the true Church ' is built of, and then Of true Faith, and what love a Christian ought to ' have •' Nordlingen copiously shedding tears the while l(i'iele Thrdneu vergossen), as it well might. ' Going to Church, and coming from it, ' each Landlord walked ahead of his party; party followed two and ' two. On other days, there was much catechising of them at different ' parts of the Town;' — orthodox enough, you see, nothing of superstition or fanaticism in the poor people; — ' they made a good testimony of their ' Evangelical truth. ' The Baggage-wagons which they had with them, ten in number, ' upon which some of their old people sat, were brought into the Town. ' The Baggage was unloaded, and the packages, Two hundred and ' eighty-one of them in all' (for Fassmann is Photography itself), ' were ' locked in the Zoll-Haus. Over and above what they got from the ' Spital, the Church-collection and the Town-chest, Citizens were liberal; ' daily sent them food, or daily had them by fours and fives to their ' own houses to meat. ' And so let them wait for the Prussian Commis- sary, who is just at hand : ' they would not part from one another, these ' Three hundred and thirty-one,' says Fassmann, ' though their reunion ' was but of that accidental nature. '" Glimpse second: not dated; perhaps some ten days later; and a Prussian Commissary with this party : ' On their getting to the Anspach Territoiy, there was so incredible ' a joy at the arrival of these exiled Brothers in the Faith {Glanbens- ' Briider) that in all places, almost in the smallest hamlets, the bells ' were seta-tolling; and nothing was heard biit a peal of welcome from ' far and near.' Prussian Commissary, when about cjuitting Anspach, asked leave to pass .through Bamberg; Bishop of Bamberg, too ortho- dox a gentleman, declined ; so the Commissary had to go by Niirnberg and Baireuth. Ask not if his welcome was good in those Protestant places. ' At Erlangen, fifteen miles from Niirnberg, where are French ' Protestants and a Dowager Margravine of Baireuth,' — Widow of Wil- hclmina's Father-in-law's predecessor (if the reader can count that) ; 7 Gen, xii. i. u Fassmann, pp. 439, 440. Chap. HI. THE SALZBURGERS. 95 Feb. -April 1732. daughter of Weissenfels who was for marrying Wilhebniiia not long since! — 'at Erlangen, the Serene Dowager snatched-up fifty of them ' into her own House for Christian refection ; and Burghers of means ' had twelve, fifteen and even eighteen of them, following such example ' set. Nay certain French Citizens, prosperous and childless, besieged ' the Prussian Commissary to allow them a few Salzburg children for ' adoption ; especially one Frenchman was extremely urgent and spe- ' cific : but the Commissary, not having any order, was obliged to re- ' fuse.'^ These must have been interesting days for the two young Margravines ; forwarding Papa's poor pilgrims in that manner. 'At Baireuth,' other side ofNiirnberg, 'it was towards Good Friday when the Pilgrims under their Commissarius arrived. They were lodged in the villages about, but came copiously into the Town ; came all in a body to Church on Good Friday ; and at coming out, were one and all carried off to dinner, a very scramble arising among the Townsfolk to get hold of Pilgrims and dine them. Vast numbers were carried to the Schloss ;' one figures Wilhelmina among them, figures the Hereditary Prince and old Margraf: their treatment there was ' beyond belief, ' says Fassmann ; ' not only dinner of the amplest ' quality and quantity, but much money added and other gifts.' From Baireuth the route is towards Gera and Thiiringen, circling the Bam- berg Territory: readers remember Gera, where the Gera Bond was made? — 'At Gera, a commercial gentleman dined the whole party in ' his own premises, and his wife gave four groschen to each individual ' of them ; other two persons, brothers in the place, doing the like. ' One of the poor pilgrim women had been brought to bed on the ' journey, a day or two before : the Commissarius lodged her in his ' own inn, for greater safety ; Commissarius returning to his inn, finds ' she is off, nobody at first can tell him whither : a lady of quality ' [vornekme Dame) iias quietly sent her carriage for the poor pilgrim ' sister, and has her in the right softest keeping. No end to people's ' kindness: many wept aloud, sobbing out, "Is this all the help we 'can give?" Commissarius said, "There will others come shortly; ' them also you can help." ' In this manner march these Pilgrims. 'From Donau- ' worth, by Anspach, Niirnberg, Baireuth, through Gera, Zeitz, ' Weissenfels, to Halle,' where they are on Prussian ground, and within few days of Berlin. Other Towns, not upon the first straight route to Berlin, demand to have a share in these grand things ; share is willingly conceded : thus the Pilgrims, what has its obvious advantages, march by a good variety of routes. Through Augsburg, Ulm (instead of Donauworth), thence to Frankfurt ; from Frankfurt some direct to Leipzig : some through Cassel, Hanover, Brunswick, by Halberstadt and Mag- " Fassmann, p. 441. 96 APPRENTICESHIP, LAST STAGE. Book IX. Feb. -April 1732. deburg instead of Halle. Starting all at Salzburg, landing all at Berlin ; their routes spread over the Map of Germany in the intermediate space. ' Weissenfels Town and Duke distinguished themselves by liberality : ' especially the Duke did ;' — poor old drinking Duke ; very Protestant all these Saxon Princes, except the Apostate or Pseudo- Apostate the Physically Strong, for sad political reasons. 'In Weissenfels Town, ' while the Pilgrim procession walked, a certain rude foreign fellow, ' flax-pedlar by trade,'" by creed Papist or worse, said floutingly, "The ' Archbishop ought to have flung you all into the river, you — !" Upon ' which a menial servant of the Duke's suddenly broke in upon him in ' the way of actuality, the whole crowd blazing into flame ; and the ' pedlar would certainly have got irreparable damage, had not the ' Townguard instantly hooked him away.' April 2ist, 1732, the first actual body, a good nine hun- dred strong,^^ got to Halle ; where they were received with de- vout jubilee, psalm-singing, spiritual and corporeal refection, as at Nordlingen and the other stages ; ' Archidiaconus Franke' being prominent in it, — I have no doubt, a connexion of that " chien de Franke," whom Wilhelmina used to know. They were lodged in the Waisenhaus (old Franke's Orphan-house) ; Official List of them was drawn-up here, with the fit specificality ; and, after three days, they took the road again for Berlin. Use- ful Buchholz, then a very little boy, remembers the arrival of a Body of these Salzburgers, not this but a later one in August, which passed through his native Village, Pritzwalk in the Prieg- nitz : How village and village authorities were all awake, with opened stores and hearts ; how his Father, the Village Parson, preached at five in the afternoon. The same Buchholz, com- ing afterwards to College at Halle, had the pleasure of disco- vering two of the Commissaries, two of the three, who had mainly superintended in this Salzburg Pilgrimage. Let the reader also take a glance at them, as specimens worth notice : Commissarius First : ' Ilerr von Reck was a nobleman from the Hanover Country; of very great piety; who, after his Commission was done, settled at Halle; and lived there, without servant, in pri- vacy, from the small means he had ; — seeking his sole satisfaction in attendance on the Theological and Ascetic College-Lectures, where I used to see him constantly in my student time.' Commissaiins Second : ' Ilerr Gobel was a medical man by profes- ' sion; and had the regular degree oi Doctor; but was in no necessity ^0 ' IlechcUriigcr, H.iwkcr Oi fl.nx-combs or heckles;— \^ oftenest a Slavonic Austrian (I am tolj). " Uuchholz, i. 156. Chap. III. THE SALZBURGERS. 97 Fob. -April 1732. ' to apply his talents to the gaining of bread. His zeal for religion had ' moved him to undertake this Commission. Both these gentlemen 1 ' have often seen in my youth,' but do not tell you what they were like farther; 'and both their Christian-names have escaped me.' A third Conimissarius was of Preussen, and had religious-literary tendencies. I suppose these Three served gratis; — volunteers; but no doubt under oath, and tied by strict enough Prussian law. Physician, Chaplain, Road-guide, here they are, probably of supreme quality, ready to our hand. '- Buchholz, after 'his student time,' became a poor Country- Schoolmaster, and then a poor Country-Parson, in his native Altmark. His poor Book is of innocent, clear, faithful nature, with some vein of • unconscious geniahty' in it here and there ; — a Book by no means so destitute of human worth as some that have superseded it. This was posthumous, this ' Neivest Hisiofy,' and has a Li/e of the Author prefixed. He has four previous Volumes on the * Ancient Hislory of Bf'aiidenbiirg,' which are not known to me. — About the Year 1745, there were Four poor Schoolmasters in that region (two at Havelberg, one at Seehausen, one at Werben), of extremely studious turn ; who, in spite of the Elbe which ran between, used to meet on stated nights, for colloquy, for interchange of Books and the like. One of them, the Werben one, was this Buchholz ; an- other, Seehausen, was the Winckelmann so celebrated in after years. A third, one of the Havelberg pair, ' went into Meck- ' lenburg in a year or two, as Tutor to Karl Ludwig the Prince ' of Strelitz's children,' — whom also mark. For the youngest of these Strelitz children was no other than the actual " Old Queen Charlotte" (ours and George ni.'s), just ready for him with her Hornbooks about that time : Let the poor man have what honour he can from that circumstance ! ' Prince Karl Ludwig,' rather a foolish-looking creature, we may fall in with personally by and by. It was the 30th April 1732, seven weeks and a day since Crown-Prince Friedi'ich's Betrothal, that this first body of Salz- burg Emigrants, nine hundred strong, arrived at Berlin ; ' lour in the afternoon, at the Brand-enburg Gate ;' Official persons, nay Majesty himself, or perhaps both Majesties, waiting there to receive thein. Yes, ye poor footsore mortals, there is the dread King himself ; stoutish short figure in blue uniform and •' Buchholz, Neueste Prcnuisck-Brandcnhuygischc Ccschichte (Eeilin, 1775 2 vols. 4to), i. 15511. VOL. III. H 98 APPRENTICESHIP, LAST STAGE. Book I x. Feb.-April 1732. white wig, straw-coloured waistcoat, and white gaiters; stands uncommonly firm on his feet ; reddish, bhie-reddish face, with eyes that pierce through a man : look upon him, and yet live if you arc true men. His Majesty's reception of these poor people could not but be good ; nothing now wanting in the formal kind. But better far, in all the essentialities of it, there had not been hitherto, nor was henceforth, the least flaw. This Salzburg Pilgrimage has found for itself, and will find, regula- tion, guidance, ever a stepping-stone at the needful p ace ; a paved road, so far as human regularity and punctuality could pave one. That is his Majesty's shining merit. ' Next Sun- ' day, after sermon, they' (this first lot of Salzburgers) ' were ' publicly catechised in church ; and all the world could hear ' their pertinent answers, given often in the very Scripture texts, ' or express words of Luther.' His Majesty more than once took survey of these Pilgrim- age Divisions, when they got to Berlin. A pleasant sight, if there were leisure otherwise. On various occasions, too, her Majesty had large parties of them over to Monbijou, to supper there in the fine gardens ; and 'gave them Bibles,' among other gifts, if in want of Bibles through Firmian's industry. Her Majesty was Charity itself. Charity and Grace combined, among these Pilgrims. On one occasion she picked-out a handsome young lass among them, and had Painter Pesne over to take her portrait. Handsome lass, by Pesne, in her Tyrolese Hat, shone thenceforth on the walls of Monbijou ; and fashion there- upon took-up the Tyrolese Hat, 'which has been much v.-orn ' since bythe beautiful part of the Creation,' saysBuchholz ; 'but ' how many changes they have introduced in it no pen can trace.' At Berlin the Commissarius ceased ; and there was usually given the Pilgrims a Candidatus Theologirc, who was to con- duct them the rest of the way, and be their Clergyman when once settled. Five hundred long miles still. Some were shipped at Stettin ; mostly they marched, stage after stage, — four gro- schen a day. At the farther end they found all ready; tight cottages, tillable fields, all implements furnished, and stock, — even to * Fcdervich,' or Chanticleer with a modicum of Hens. Old neighbours, and such as liked each other, were put toge- ther : fields grew green again, desolate scrubs and scrags yield- ing to grass and corn. Wooden clocks even came to view, — for Bcrchtesgadcn neighbours also emigrated ; and Swiss came, Chap. III. THE SALZBURGERS. 99 Fcb.-April 1732. and Bavarians and French : — and old trades were revived in those new localities. Something beautifully real-idyllic in all this, surely: — Yet do not fancy that it all went on like clockwork ; that there were not jarrings at every step, as is the way in things real. Of the Prussian Minister chiefly concerned in settling this new Colony I have heard one saying, forced out of him in some pressure : " There must be somebody for a scolding-stock and scape-goat ; I will be it, then !" And then the Salzburg Officials, what a hu- mour they were in ! No Letters allowed from those poor Emi- grants; the wickedest rumours circulated about them : "All cut to pieces by inroad of the Poles ;" " Pressed for soldiers by the Prussian drill-sergeant ;" "All flung into the Lakes and stagnant waters there ; drowned to the last individual ;" and so on. Truth nevertheless did slowly pierce through. And the "Grossc Wirih," our idyllic-real Friedrich Wilhelm, was wanting in nothing. Lists of their unjust losses in Salzburg were, on his Majesty's order, made out and authenticated, by the many who had suffered in that way there, — forced to sell at a day's notice, and the like : — with these his Majesty was dihgent in the Imperial Court ; and did get what hum.an industry could of compensation, apart but not the whole. Contradictory noises had to abate. In the end, sound purpose, built on fact and the Laws of Nature, car- ried it ; lies, vituperations, rumours and delusion sank to zero; and the true result remained. In 1738, the Salzburg Emigrant Community in Preussen held, in all their Churches, a Day of Thanksgiving ; and admitted piously that Heaven's blessing, of a truth, had been upon this King and them. There we leave them, a useful solid population ever since in those parts ; increased by this time we know not how many fold. It cost Friedrich Wilhelm enormous sums, say the Old His- tories ; probably 'ten to?:s of gold,' — that is to say, ten Hun- dred-thousand Thalers ; almost 150,000/., no less! But he lived to see it amply repaid, even in his own time ; how much more amply since ; — being a man skilful in investments to a high degree indeed. Fancy 150,000/. invested there, in the Bank of Nature herself; and a Hundred-millions invested, say at Balaclava, in the Bank of Newspaper rumour : and the re- spective rates of interest they will yield, a million years hence ! This was the most idyllic of Friedrich Wilhelm's feats, and a very real one the while. loo APPRENTICESHIP, LAST STAGE. Book ix. Feb.-April 1732. We have only to add or repeat, that Salzburgers to the number of about 7,000 souls arrived at their place this first year ; and in the year or two following, less noted by the pub- lic, but faring steadily fonvard upon their four groschen a day, 10,000 more. Friedrich Wilhelm would have gladly taken the whole ; 'but George II. took a certain number,' say the Prus- sian Books (George II., or pious Trustees instead of him), 'and settled them at Ebenezer in Virginia,' — read, Ebenezer in Georgia, where General Oglethorpe was busy founding a Co- lony.i^ There at Ebenezer I calculate they might go ahead, too, after the questionable fashion of that country, and increase and swell ; — but have never heard of them since. Salzburg Emigration was a very real transaction on Fried- rich Wilhelm's part ; but it proved idyllic too, and made a great impression on the German mind. Readers know of a Book caXled Herjuann and Dorothea ? It is written by the great Goethe, and still worth reading. The great Goethe had heard, when still very little, much talk among the elders about this Salzburg Pilgrimage ; and how strange a thing it was, twenty years ago and more.^^ In middle life he threw it into Hexa- meters, into the region of the air ; 'and did that unreal Shadow of it ; a pleasant work in its way, since he was not inclined foj more. CHAPTER IV. PRUSSIAN MAJESTY VISITS THE KAISER. Majesty seeing all these matters well in train, — Salzburgers under way, Crown-Prince betrothed according to his Majesty's and the Kaiser's (not to her Majesty's, and high-flying little George of England my Brother the Comedian's) mind and will, — begins to think seriously of another enterprise, half business half pleasure, which has been hovering in his mind for some time. "Visit to my Daughter at Baireuth," he calls it publicly ; but it means intrinsically Excursion into Bohmen, to have a word with the Kaiser, and see his Imperial Majesty in the body for once. Too remarkable a thing to be omitted by us here. ■ >' Petition to P.nrli.imcnt, loth (ai^^t) May 1733, l)y Ogletlioipe and liis TTii5;tees, for 10,000/. to carry over these Salzburgers ; which was granted ; 'J'indal's RaJ'hi (London, 1769), xx. 184. '• 1749 was Goethe's birth-year. Chap. IV. MAJESTY VISITS THE KAISER. loi May 1732. Crown-Prince docs not accompany on this occasion ; Crown- Prince is with his Regiment all this while ; busy minding his own affairs in the Ruppin quarter ; — only hears, with more or less interest, of these Salzburg-Pilgrim movements, of this Excursion into Bohmen. Here are certain scraps of Letters ; which, if once made legible, will assist readers to conceive his situation and employments there. Letters otherwise of no importance ; but worth reading on that score. The fi7-st (or rather first three, which we huddle into one) is from ' Nauen,' few miles off Ruppin ; where one of our Battalions lies ; re- quiring frequent visits there : I. To Gmmkow, at Berlin (from the Crown-Prince). 'Nauen, 25th April 1732. 'Monsieur my dearest Friend, — I send you a big mass of papers, ' which a certain gentleman named Plotz has transmitted me. In faith, ' I know not in the least what it is : I pray you present it' (to his Ma- jesty, or in the proper quarter), ' and make me rid of it. 'Tomon-ow I go to Potsdam' ( a drive of forty miles southward), ' to see the exercise, and if we do it here according to pattern. Nate ' Besen kchren gut' (New brooms sweep clean, in Germaft) ; ' I shall ' liave to illustrate my new character' of Colonel ; ' and show that I am ' i-in tiichtiger Officier (a right Officer). Be what I may, I shall to you ' always be,' &c. &c. A^aiien, jth May ij-^i. ' ^' * Thousand thanks for informing me ' how everything goes-on in the world. Tilings far from agreeable, ' tliose leagues' (imaginary, in Tobacco-Parliament) ' suspected to be ' forming against our House ! But if the Kaiser don't abandon us ;' ' if ' God second the valour of 80,000 men resolved to spend their life,' — ' let us hope there will nothing bad happen. ' Meanwhile, till events arrive, I make a pretty stir here {/)ie tre- ' mousse ici d' importance), to bring my Regiment to its requisite perfec- ' tion, and I hope I shall succeed. The other day I drank your dear ' health, Monsieur ; and I wait only the news from my Cattle-stall that ' the Calf I am fattening there is ready for sending to you. I unite ' Mars and Housekeeping, you see. Send me your Secretary's name, ' that I may address your Letters that way, ' — our Correspondence need- ing to be secret in certain quarters. '' * 'With a' truly infinite esteem : • — 'Frederic' Xatieit, loth J\Iay 1732. ' You will see by this that I am exact to ' follow your instruction; and that the Sc/iulz of Tremmen' (Village in the Brandenburg quarter, with a Schidz or Mayor to be depended on), I02 APPRENTICESHIP, LAST STAGE. Cook ix. May 1732. ' becomes for the present the mainspring of our correspondence. I ' return you all the things {pieces) you had the goodness to communi- ' cate to me, — except Charles Douze,^ which attaches me infinitely. ' The particulars hitherto unknown which he reports ; the greatness of ' that Prince's actions, and the perverse singularity {bizarrerie) of his ' fortune : all this, joined to the lively, brilliant and charming way the ' Author has of telling it, renders this Book interesting to the supreme ' degree. * ■■' * I send you a fragment of my correspondence with the ' most illustrious Sieur Crochet,' some Fiench Envoy or Emissary, I conclude : ' you perceive we go on very sweetly together, and are in ' a high strain. I am sorry I burnt one of his Letters, wherein he as- ' sured me he would in the Versailles Antechamber itself speak of me ' to the King, and that my name had actually been mentioned at the ' King's Levee. It certainly is not my ambition to choose this illustri- ' ous mortal to publish my renown; on the contrary, I should think ' it soiled by such a mouth, and prostituted if he were the publisher. ' But enough of the Crochet : the kindest thing we can do for so con- ' temptible an object is to say nothing of him at all.'- — '■' '■•' Letter second is to Jagermeister Hacke, Captain of the Potsdam Guard ; who stands in great nearness to the King's Majesty ; and, in fact, is fast becoming his factotum in Army- details. We, with the Duke of Lorraine and Majesty in person, saw his marriage to the Excellency Creutz's Friiulein Daughter not long since ; who we trust has made him happy ; — rich he is at any rate, and will be Adjutant-General before long ; power- ful in such intricacies as this that the Prince has fallen into. The Letter has its obscurities ; tm-ns earnestly on Recruits tall and short"; nor have idle Editors helped us, by the least hint towards ' reading' it with more than the eyes. Old Des- sauer at this time is Commandant at Magdeburg ; Budden- brock, perhaps now passing by Ruppin, we know for a high old General, fit to carry messages from Majesty, — or, likelier, it may be Lieutenant Buddenbrock, his Son, merely returning to Ruppin 1 Wc can guess, that the flattering Dcssauer has sent his Majesty Five gigantic men from the Magdeburg regi- ments, and that Friedrich is ordered to hustle out Thirty of insignificant stature from his own, by way of counter-gift to the Dcssauer ; — which Friedrich does instantly, but cannot, for his life, see hov/ (being totally cashless) he is to replace them with better, or replace them at all ! • Voltaire's new Book ; lately come out, ' Bale, 1731.' ' CEuvres de Frederic, xvi. 49, 51. Ch:K,. IV. MAJESTY VISITS THE KAISER. 103 July 1732. 2. To Captain Hacke, of the Potsdam Guard. 'Ruppin, 15th July 1732. ^ Meiii Goit, whal a piece of news Buddenbrock has brought me! ' I am to get nothing out of Brandenburg, my dear Ilacke? Thirty ' men I had to shift out of my company in consequence' (of Budden- brock's order) ; ' and where am I now to get other thirly? I would ' gLidly give the King tall men, as the Dessauer at Magdeburg does ; ' but I have no money ; and I don't get, or set up tor getting, six men ' for one' (thirty short for five tall), ' as he does. So true is that Scrip- ' ture : To him that hath shall be given ; and from him that hath not ' shall be taken away even that he hath. ' Small art, that the Prince of Dessau's and the Magdeburg Regi- ' meats are fine, when they have money at command, and thirty men ' g7-atis over and above! I, poor devil, have nothing; nor shall have, ' all my days. Prithee, dear Hacke [bitte Ihn, licber Hacke), think of ' all that : and if I have no money allowed, I must bring Asmus^ alone * as Recruit next year; and my Regiment will to a certainty be rubbish ' {Kroop). Once I had learned a German Proverb — " V'ersprechen iind haltcn (To promise and to keep) Ziemt ixjohl yiingen imd Alien (Is pretty for young and for old) !" 'I depend alone on you [I/m), dear Hacke; unless you help, there ' is a bad outlook. Today I have knocked again' (written to Papa for money) ; ' and ii that does not help, it is over. If I could get any ' money to borrow, it would do; but I need not think of that. Help ' me, then, dear Ilacke ! I assure you I will ever remember it ; who, ' at all limes, am my dear Ilerr Captain's devoted {ganz ergebjiier) ' servant and friend, Friderich.'* To which r.dd only this Note, two days later, to Secken- dorf; indicating that the process of 'borrowing' has already, in some form, begun, — process which will have to continue, and to develop itself; — and that his Majesty, as Seckendorf well knows, is resolved upon his Bohemian journey : 3 . To the Geiiei'al Feldzeugmeistcr Graf von Scchendorf ' Ruppin, 17th July 1732. 'My very dear General, — I have written to the King, that I owed ' you 2,125 thalcrs for the Recruits; of which he says there are 600 ' paid: there remain, therefore, 1,525, which he will pay you directly. ' The King is going to Prague : I shall not be of the party' (as you will). 'To say truth, I am not very sorry; for it would infallibly give ' rise to foolish rumours in the world. At the same time, I should have ' much wished to see the Emperor, Empress, and Prince of Lorraine, 3 Recruit unknown to me. ■• In German: GLuvres, xxvii. part 3d, p. 177. I04 APPRENTICESHIP, LAST STAGE. Book ix. July 1732. ' for whom I have a quite particular esteem. I beg you, Monsieur, to * assure him of it; — and to assure yourself that I shall always be, — ' with a great deal of consideration, j\/onsiei