Book: History of Friedrich II of Prussia V 21

T >> Thomas Carlyle >> History of Friedrich II of Prussia V 21




"This NEUE PALAIS," says one recent Tourist, "is a pleasant quaint
object, nowadays, to the stranger. It has the air DEGAGE
POCOCURANTE; pleasantly fine in aspect and in posture;--spacious
expanses round it, not in a waste, but still less in a strict
condition; and (in its deserted state) has a silence, especially a
total absence of needless flunkies and of gaping fellow-loungers,
which is charming. Stands mute there, in its solitude, in its
stately silence and negligence, like some Tadmor of the Wilderness
in small. The big square of Stables, Coach-houses, near by, was
locked up,--probably one sleeping groom in it. The very CUSTOS of
the grand Edifice (such the rarity of fees to him) I could not
awaken without difficulty. In the gray autumn zephyrs, no sound
whatever about this New Palace of King Friedrich's, except the
rustle of the crisp brown leaves, and of any faded or fading
memories you may have.

"I should say," continues he, "it somehow reminds you of the City
of Bath. It has the cut of a battered Beau of old date; Beau still
extant, though in strangely other circumstances; something in him
of pathetic dignity in that kind. It shows excellent sound
masonries; which have an over-tendency to jerk themselves into
pinnacles, curvatures and graciosities; many statues atop,--three
there are, in a kind of grouped or partnership attitude;
'These,' said diligent scandal, 'note them; these mean Maria
Theresa, Pompadour and CATIN DU NORD' (mere Muses, I believe, or of
the Nymph or Hamadryad kind, nothing of harm in them). In short,
you may call it the stone Apotheosis of an old French Beau.
Considerably weather-beaten (the brown of lichens spreading visibly
here and there, the firm-set ashlar telling you, 'I have stood a
hundred years');--Beau old and weather-beaten, with his cocked-hat
not in the fresh condition, all his gold-laces tarnished;
and generally looking strange, and in a sort tragical, to find
himself, fleeting creature, become a denizen of the Architectural
Fixities and earnest Eternities!"--

From Potsdam Palace to the New Palace of Sans-Souci may be a mile
distance; flat ground, parallel to the foot of Hills; all through
arbors, parterres, water-works, and ornamental gardenings and
cottagings or villa-ings,--Cottage-Villa for Lord Marischal is one
of them. This mile of distance, taking the COTTAGE Royal of Sans-
Souci on its hill-top as vertex, will be the base of an isosceles
or nearly isosceles triangle, flatter than equilateral. To the
Cottage Royal of Sans-Souci may be about three-quarters of a mile
northeast from this New Palace, and from Potsdam Palace to it
rather less. And the whole square-mile or so of space is
continuously a Garden, not in the English sense, though it has its
own beauties of the more artificial kind; and, at any rate, has
memories for you, and footsteps of persons still unforgotten by
mankind.--Here is a Notice of Lord Marischal; which readers will
not grudge; the chronology of the worthy man, in these his later
epochs, being in so hazy a state:--

Lord Marischal, we know well and Pitt knows, was in England in
1761,--ostensibly on the Kintore Heritage; and in part, perhaps,
really on that errand. But he went and came, at dates now
uncertain; was back in Spain after that, had difficult voyagings
about; [King's Letters to him, in OEuvres de Frederic,
xx. 282-285.]--and did not get to rest again, in his
Government of Neufchatel, till April, 1762. There is a Letter of
the King's, which at least fixes that point:--

"BRESLAU, 10th APRIL, 1762. My nose is the most impertinent nose in
the universe, MON CHER MYLORD [Queen-Dowager snuff, SPANIOL from
the fountain-head, of Marischal's providing; quality exquisite, but
difficult to get transmitted in the Storms of War]; I am ashamed of
the trouble it costs you! I beg many pardons;--and should be quite
abashed, did I not know how you compassionate the weak points of
your friends, and that, for a long time past, you have a singular
indulgence for my nose. I am very glad to know you happily returned
to your Government, safe at Colombier (DOVE-COTE) in Neufchatel
again." This is 10th April, 1762. There, as I gather, quiet in his
Dove-cote, Marischal continued, though rather weary of the
business, for about a year more; or till the King got home,--who
delights in companionship, and is willing to let an old man demit
for good.

It was in Summer, 1762 (about three months after the above Letter
from the King), that Rousseau made his celebrated exodus into
Neufchatel Country, and found the old Governor so good to him,--
glad to be allowed to shelter the poor skinless creature. And, mark
as curious, it must have been on two of those mornings, towards the
end of the Siege of Schweidnitz, when things were getting so
intolerable, and at times breaking out into electricity, into
"rebuke all round," that Friedrich received that singular pair of
Laconic Notes from Rousseau in Neufchatel: forwarded, successively,
by Lord Marischal; NOTE FIRST, of date, "Motier-Travers,
Neufchatel, September," nobody can guess what day, "1762:" "I have
said much ill of you, and don't repent it. Now everybody has
banished me; and it is on your threshold that I sit down. Kill me,
if you have a mind!" And then (after, not death, but the gift of
100 crowns), NOTE SECOND, "October, 1762:" ... "Take out of my
sight that sword, which dazzles and pains me; IT has only too well
done its duty, while the sceptre is abandoned:" Make Peace, can't
you! [ OEuvres completes de Rousseau (a
Geneve, 1782-1789), xxxiii. 64, 65.]--What curious reading for a
King in such posture, among the miscellaneous arrivals overnight!
Above six weeks before either of these NOTES, Friedrich, hearing of
him from Lord Marischal, had answered: "An asylum? Yes, by all
means: the unlucky cynic!" It is on September 1st, that he sends,
by the same channel, 100 crowns for his use, with advice to "give
them in NATURA, lest he refuse otherwise;" as Friedrich knows to be
possible. In words, the Rousseau Notes got nothing of Answer.
"A GARCON SINGULIER," says Friedrich: odd fellow, yes indeed, your
Majesty;--and has such a pungency of flattery in him too, presented
in the way of snarl! His Majesty might take him, I suppose, with a
kind of relish, like Queen-Dowager snuff.

There was still another shift of place, shift which proved
temporary, in old Marischal's life: Home to native Aberdeenshire.
The two childless Brothers, Earls of Kintore, had died
successively, the last of them November 22d, 1761: title and
heritage, not considerable the latter, fell duly, by what
preparatives we know, to old Marischal; but his Keith kinsfolk,
furthermore, would have him personally among them,--nay, after
that, would have him to wed and produce new Keiths. At the age of
78; decidedly an inconvenient thing! Old Marischal left Potsdam
"August, 1763," [Letter of his to the King ("LONDRES, 14 AOUT,
1763"), in OEuvres de Frederic, xx. 293.--In
Letters of Eminent Persons to David Hume
(Edinburgh, 1849), pp. 57-71, are some Nine from the Old Marischal;
in curiously mixed dialect, cheerful, but indistinct; the two chief
dates of which are: "Touch" (guttural TuCH, in Aberdeenshire), "28
October, 1763," and "Potsdam, 20 February, 1765."]--NEW-PALACE
scaffoldings and big stone blocks conspicuous in those localities;
pleasant D'Alembert now just about leaving, in the other direction;
--much to Friedrich's regret, the old Marischal especially, as is
still finely evident.


FRIEDRICH TO LORD MARISCHAL (in Scotland for the last six months).

"SANS-SOUCI, 16th February, 1764.

"I am not surprised that the Scotch fight to have you among them;
and wish to have progeny of yours, and to preserve your bones.
You have in your lifetime the lot of Homer after death: Cities
arguing which is your birthplace;--I myself would dispute it with
Edinburgh to possess you. If I had ships, I would make a descent on
Scotland, to steal off my CHER MYLORD, and bring him hither.
Alas, our Elbe Boats can't do it. But you give me hopes;--which I
seize with avidity! I was your late Brother's friend, and had
obligations to him; I am yours with heart and soul. These are my
titles, these are my rights:--you sha'n't be forced in the matter
of progeny here (FAIRE L'ETALON ICI), neither priests nor attorneys
shall meddle with you; you shall live here in the bosom of
friendship, liberty and philosophy." Come to me! ...--F.
[ OEuvres de Frederic, xx. 295.]

Old Marischal did come; and before long. I know not the precise
month: but "his Villa-Cottage was built for him," the Books say,
"in 1764." He had left D'Alembert just going; next year he will
find Helvetius coming. He lived here, a great treasure to
Friedrich, till his death, 25th May, 1778, age 92.

The New Palace was not finished till 1770;--in which year, also,
Friedrich reckons that the general Problem of Repairing Prussia was
victoriously over. New Palace, growing or complete, looks down on
all these operations and occurrences. In its cradle, it sees
D'Alembert go, Lord Marischal go; Helvetius come, Lord Marischal
come; in its boyhood or maturity, the Excise, and French RATS-DE-
CAVE, spring up; Crown-Prince Friedrich Wilhelm prick his hand for
a fit kind of ink; Friedrich Wilhelm's Divorced Wife give her
Douanier two slaps in the face, by way of payment. Nay, the same
Friedrich Wilhelm, become "Friedrich Wilhelm II., or DER DICKE,"
died in it,--his Lichtenau AND his second Wife, jewel of women,
nursing him in his last sickness there. ["Died 16th November,
1797."]

The violent stress of effort for repairing Prussia, Friedrich
intimates, was mostly over in 1766: till which date specifically,
and in a looser sense till 1770, that may be considered as his main
business. But it was not at any time his sole business;
nor latterly at all equal in interest to some others that had risen
on him, as the next Chapter will now show. Here, first, is a little
Fraction of NECROLOGY, which may be worth taking with us.
Readers can spread these fateful specialties over the Period in
question; and know that each of them came with a kind of knell upon
Friedrich's heart, whatever he might be employed about.
Hour striking after hour on the Horologe of Time; intimating how
the Afternoon wore, and that Night was coming. Various meanings
there would be to Friedrich in these footfalls of departing guests,
the dear, the less dear, and the indifferent or hostile; but each
of them would mean: "Gone, then, gone; thus we all go!"


"OBITUARY IN FRIEDRICH'S CIRCLE TILL 1771."

Of Polish Majesty's death (5th October, 1763), and then (2d
December following) of his Kurprinz or Successor's, with whom we
dined at Moritzburg so recently, there will be mention by and by.
November 28th, 1763, in the interval between these two, the
wretched Bruhl had died. April 14th, 1764, died the wretched
Pompadour;--"To us not known, JE NE LA CONNAIS PAS:"--hapless
Butterfly, she had been twenty years in the winged condition;
age now forty-four: dull Louis, they say, looked out of window as
her hearse departed, "FROIDEMENT," without emotion of any visible
kind. These little concern Friedrich or us; we will restrict
ourselves to Friends.

"DIED IN 1764. At Pisa, Algarotti (23d May, 1764, age fifty-two);
with whom Friedrich has always had some correspondence hitherto (to
himself interesting, though not to us), and will never henceforth
have more. Friedrich raised a Monument to him; Monument still to be
seen in the Campo-Santo of Pisa: 'HIC JACET OVIDII AEMULUS ET
NEUTONI DISCIPULUS;' friends have added 'FREDERICUS MAGNUS PONI
FECIT;' and on another part of the Monument, 'ALGAROTTUS NON
OMNIS.' [Preuss, iv. 188.]

"--IN 1765. At the age of eighty, November 18th, Grafin Camas, 'MA
BONNE MAMAN' (widow since 1741); excellent old Lady,--once
brilliantly young, German by birth, her name Brandt;--to whom the
King's LETTERS used to be so pretty." This same year, too, Kaiser
Franz died; but him we will reserve, as not belonging to this
Select List.

"--IN 1766. At Nanci, 23d February, age eighty-six, King Stanislaus
Leczinsky: 'his clothes caught fire' (accidental spark or sputter
on some damask dressing-gown or the like); and the much-enduring
innocent old soul ended painfully his Titular career.

"DIED IN 1767. October 22d, the Grand-Duchess of Sachsen-Gotha, age
fifty-seven; a sad stroke this also, among one's narrowing List of
Friends.--I doubt if Friedrich ever saw this high Lady after the
Visit we lately witnessed. His LETTERS to her are still in the
Archives of Gotha: not hers to him; all lost, these latter, but an
accidental Two, which are still beautiful in their kind. [Given in
OEuvres de Frederic, xviii. 165, 256.]

"--IN 1770. Bielfeld, the fantastic individual of old days.
Had long been out of Friedrich's circle,--in Altenburg Country, I
think;--without importance to Friedrich or us: the year of him will
do, without search for day or month.

"---IN 1771. Two heavy deaths come this year. January 28th, 1771,
at Berlin, dies our valuable old friend Excellency Mitchell,--still
here on the part of England, in cordial esteem as a man and
companion; though as Minister, I suppose, with function more and
more imaginary. This painfully ushers in the year. To usher it out,
there is still worse: faithful D'Argens dies, 26th December, 1771,
on a visit in his native Provence,--leaving, as is still visible,
[Friedrich's two Letters to the Widow (Ib. xix. 427-429).] a big
and sad blank behind him at Potsdam." But we need not continue;
at least not at present.

Long before all these, Friedrich had lost friends; with a sad but
quiet emotion he often alludes to this tragic fact, that all the
souls he loved most are gone. His Winterfelds, his Keiths, many
loved faces, the War has snatched: at Monbijou, at Baireuth, it was
not War; but they too are gone. Is the world becoming all a
Mausoleum, then; nothing of divine in it but the Tombs of vanished
loved ones? Friedrich makes no noise on such subjects: loved and
unloved alike must go.

We have still to mark Kaiser Franz's sudden death; a thing
politically interesting, if not otherwise. August, 1765, at
Innspruck, during the Marriage-festivities of his Second Son,
Leopold (Duke of Florence, who afterwards, on Joseph's death, was
Kaiser),--Kaiser Franz, sauntering about in the evening gala,
"18th August, about 9 P.M.," suddenly tottered, staggered as
falling; fell into Son Joseph's arms; and was dead. Above a year
before, this same Joseph, his Eldest Son, had been made King of the
Romans: "elected 26th March; crowned 3d April, 1764;"--Friedrich
furthering it, wishful to be friendly with his late enemies.
[Rodenbeck,
ii. 234.]

On this Innspruck Tragedy, Joseph naturally became Kaiser,--Part-
Kaiser; his Dowager-Mother, on whom alone it depends, having
decided that way. The poor Lady was at first quite overwhelmed with
her grief. She had the death-room of her Husband made into a
Chapel; she founded furthermore a Monastery in Innspruck, "Twelve
Canonesses to pray there for the repose of Franz;" was herself
about to become Abbess there, and quit the secular world; but in
the end was got persuaded to continue, and take Son Joseph as
Coadjutor. [Hormayr, OESTERREICHISCHER PLUTARCH (º Maria Theresa),
iv. (2tes Bandchen) 6-124; MARIA THERESIENS LEBEN, p. 30.] In which
capacity we shall meet the young man again.



Chapter III.

TROUBLES IN POLAND.

April 11th, 1764, one year after his Seven-Years labor of Hercules,
Friedrich made Treaty of Alliance with the new Czarina Catharine.
England had deserted him; France was his enemy, especially
Pompadour and Choiseul, and refused reconcilement, though privately
solicited: he was without an Ally anywhere. The Russians had done
him frightful damage in the last War, and were most of all to be
dreaded in the case of any new one. The Treaty was a matter of
necessity as well as choice. Agreement for mutual good neighborhood
and friendly offices; guarantee of each other against intrusive
third parties: should either get engaged in war with any neighbor,
practical aid to the length of 12,000 men, or else money in lieu.
Treaty was for eight years from day of date.

As Friedrich did not get into war, and Catharine did, with the
Turks and certain loose Polacks, the burden of fulfilment happened
to fall wholly on Friedrich; and he was extremely punctual in
performance,--eager now, and all his life after, to keep well with
such a Country under such a Czarina. Which proved to be the whole
rule of his policy on that Russian side. "Good that Country cannot
bring me by any quarrel with it; evil it can, to a frightful
extent, in case of my quarrelling with others! Be wary, be
punctual, magnanimously polite, with that grandiose Czarina and her
huge territories and notions:" this was Friedrich's constant rule
in public and in private. Nor is it thought his CORRESPONDENCE WITH
THE EMPRESS CATHARINE, when future generations see it in print,
will disclose the least ground of offence to that high-flying
Female Potentate of the North. Nor will it ever be known what the
silently observant Friedrich thought of her, except indeed what we
already know, or as good as know, That he, if anybody did, saw her
clearly enough for what she was; and found good to repress into
absolute zero whatever had no bearing upon business, and might by
possibility give offence in that quarter. For we are an old King,
and have learned by bitter experiences! No more nicknames, biting
verses, or words which a bird of the air could carry; though this
poor Lady too has her liabilities, were not we old and prudent;--
and is entirely as weak on certain points (deducting the devotions
and the brandy-and-water) as some others were! The Treaty was
renewed when necessary; and continued valid and vital in every
particular, so long as Friedrich ruled.

By the end of the first eight years, by strictly following this
passive rule, Friedrich, in counterbalance of his losses,
unexpectedly found himself invested with a very singular bit of
gain,--"unjust gain!" cried all men, making it of the nature of
gain and loss to him,--which is still practically his, and which
has made, and makes to this day, an immense noise in the world.
Everybody knows we mean West-Preussen; Partition of Poland;
bloodiest picture in the Book of Time, Sarmatia's fall unwept
without a crime;--and that we have come upon a very intricate part
of our poor History.

No prudent man--especially if to himself, as is my own poor case in
regard to it, the subject have long been altogether dead and
indifferent--would wish to write of the Polish Question. For almost
a hundred years the Polish Question has been very loud in the
world; and ever and anon rises again into vocality among Able
Editors, as a thing pretending not to be dead and buried, but
capable of rising again, and setting itself right, by good effort
at home and abroad. Not advisable, beyond the strict limits of
compulsion, to write of it at present! The rather as the History of
it, any History we have, is not an intelligible series of events,
but a series of vociferous execrations, filling all Nature, with
nothing left to the reader but darkness, and such remedies against
despair as he himself can summon or contrive.

"Rulhiere's on that subject," says a Note which I may cite, "is the
only articulate-speaking Book to which mankind as yet can apply;
[Cl. Rulhiere, Histoire de l'Anarchie de Pologne italic> (Paris, 1807), 4 vols. 12mo.] and they will by no means
find that a sufficient one. Rulhiere's Book has its considerable
merits; but it absolutely wants those of a History; and can be
recognized by no mind as an intelligible cosmic Portraiture of that
chaotic Mass of Occurrences: chronology, topography, precision of
detail by time and place; scene, and actors on scene, remain
unintelligible. Rulhiere himself knew Poland, at least had looked
on it from Warsaw outwards, year after year, and knew of it what an
inquiring Secretary of Legation could pick up on those terms, which
perhaps, after all, is not very much. His Narrative is drowned in
beautiful seas of description and reflection; has neither dates nor
references; and advances at an intolerable rate of slowness;
in fact, rather turns on its axis than advances; produces on you
the effect of a melodious Sonata, not of a lucid and comfortably
instructive History.

"I forget for how long Rulhiere had been in Poland, as Ambassador's
Assistant: but the Country, the King and leading Personages were
personally known to him, more or less; Events with all details of
them were known: 'Why not write a History of the Anarchy and Wreck
they fell into?' said the Official people to him, on his return
home: 'For behoof of the Dauphin [who is to be Louis XVI. shortly];
may not he perhaps draw profit from it? At the top of the Universe,
experience is sometimes wanted. Here are the Archives, here is
Salary, here are what appliances you like to name: Write!' It is
well known he was appointed, on a Pension of 250 pounds a year,
with access to all archives, documents and appliances in possession
of the French Government, and express charge to delineate this
subject for benefit of the Dauphin's young mind. Nor can I wonder,
considering everything, that the process on Rulhiere's part, being
so full of difficulties, was extremely deliberate; that this Book
did not grow so steadily or fast as the Dauphin did; and that in
fact the poor Dauphin never got the least benefit from it,--being
guillotined, he, in 1793, and the Book intended for him never
coming to light for fourteen years afterwards, it too in a
posthumous and still unfinished condition.

"Rulhiere has heard the voices of rumor, knows an infinitude of
events that were talked of; but has not discriminated which were
the vital, which were the insignificant; treats the vital and the
insignificant alike; seldom with satisfactory precision;
mournfully seldom giving any date, and by no chance any voucher or
authority;--and instead of practical terrestrial scene of action,
with distances, milestones, definite sequence of occurrences, and
of causes and effects, paints us a rosy cloudland, which if true at
all, as he well intends it to be, is little more than symbolically
or allegorically so; and can satisfy no clear-headed Dauphin or
man. Rulhiere strives to be authentic, too; gives you no suspicion
of his fairness. There is really fine high-colored painting in
Rulhiere! and you hope always he will let you into the secret of
the matter: but the sad fact is, he never does. He merely loses
himself in picturesque details, philosophic eloquences, elegancies;
takes you to a Castle of Choczim, a Monastery of Czenstochow, a Bay
of Tschesme, and lets off extensive fire-works that contain little
or no shot; leads you on trackless marches, inroads or outroads,
through the Lithuanian Peat-bogs, on daring adventures and hair-
breadth escapes of mere Pulawski, Potocki and the like;--had not
got to understand the matter himself, you perceive: how hopeless to
make you understand it!"

English readers, however, have no other shift; the rest of the
Books I have seen,-- Histoire des Revolutions de Pologne;
[1778 (A WARSOVIE, ET SE TROUVE A PARIS), 2 vols.
8vo.] Histoire des Trois Demembremens de la Pologne;
[Anonymous (by one FERRAND, otherwise unknown to me),
Paris, 1820, 3 vols. 8vo.] Letters on Poland;
[Anonymous (by a "Reverend Mr. Lindsey," it would seem), LETTERS
CONCERNING THE PRESENT STATE OF POLAND, TOGETHER WITH &c. (London,
1773; 1 vol. 8vo): of these LETTERS, or at least of Reverend
Lindsey, Author of them, "Tutor to King Stanislaus's Nephew," and a
man of painfully loud loose tongue, there may perhaps be mention
afterwards.] and many more,--are not worth mentioning at all.
Comfortable in the mad dance of these is Hermann's recent dull
volume; [Hermann, Geschichte des Russischen Staats, italic> vol. v. (already cited in regard to the Peter-Catharine
tragedy); seems to be compiled mainly from the Saxon Archives, from
DESPATCHES written on the spot and at the time.]--commonplace,
dull, but steady and faithful; yielding us at least dates, and an
immunity from noise. By help of Hermann and the others, distilled
to CAPUT MORTUUM, a few dated facts (cardinal we dare not call
them) may be extracted;--dimly out of these, to the meditating
mind, some outline of the phenomenon may begin to become
conceivable. King of Poland dies; and there ensue huge Anarchies in
that Country.


KING OF POLAND DIES; AND THERE ENSUE HUGE ANARCHIES IN THAT COUNTRY.

The poor old King of Poland--whom we saw, on that fall of the
curtain at Pirna seven years ago, rush off for Warsaw with his
Bruhl, with expressive speed and expressive silence, and who has
been waiting there ever since, sublimely confident that his
powerful terrestrial friends, Austria, Russia, France, not to speak
of Heaven's justice at all, would exact due penalty, of signal and
tremendous nature, on the Prussian Aggressor--has again been
disappointed. The poor old Gentleman got no compensation for his
manifold losses and woes at Pirna or elsewhere; not the least
mention of such a thing, on the final winding-up of that War of
Seven Years, in which his share had been so tragical;
no alleviation was provided for him in this world. His sorrows in
Poland have been manifold; nothing but anarchies, confusions and
contradictions had been his Royal portion there: in about Forty
different Diets he had tried to get some business done,--no use
asking what; for the Diets, one and all, exploded in NIE POZWALAM;
and could do no business, good, bad or indifferent, for him or
anybody. An unwise, most idle Country; following as chief
employment perpetual discrepancy with its idle unwise King and
self; Russia the virtual head of it this long while, so far as it
has any head.

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