Book: History of Friedrich II of Prussia V 21

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

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On the strength of Saxony and its resources and connections, the
two Augusts had contrived to exist with the name of Kings; with the
name, but with little or nothing more. Under this last August, as
we heard, there have been about forty Diets, and in not one of them
the least thing of business done; all the forty, after trying their
best, have stumbled on NIE POZWALAM, and been obliged to vanish in
shrieks and curses. [Buchholz ( Preussisch-Brandenburgische
Geschichte, ii. 133, 134, &c. &c.) gives various
samples, and this enumeration.] As to August the Physically Strong,
such treatment had he met with,--poor August, if readers remember,
had made up his mind to partition Poland; to give away large
sections of it in purchase of the consent of neighbors, and plant
himself hereditarily in the central part;--and would have done so,
had not Grumkow and he drunk so deep, and death by inflammation of
the foot suddenly come upon the poor man. Some Partition of Poland
has been more than once thought of by practical people concerned.
Poland, as "a house chronically smoking through the slates," which
usually brings a new European War every time it changes King, does
require to be taken charge of by its neighbors.

Latterly, as we observed, there has been little of confederating;
indeed, for the last thirty years, as Rulhiere copiously informs
us, there has been no Government, consequently no mutiny needed;
little or no National business of any kind,--the Forty Diets having
all gone the road we saw. Electing of the Judges,--that, says
Rulhiere, and wearisomely teaches by example again and ever again,
has always been an interesting act, in the various Provinces of
Poland; not with the hope of getting fair or upright Judges, but
Judges that will lean in the desirable direction. In a country
overrun with endless lawsuits, debts, credits, feudal intricacies,
claims, liabilities, how important to get Judges with the proper
bias! And these once got, or lost till next term,--what is there to
hope or to fear? Russia does our Politics, fights her Seven-Years
War across us; and we, happy we, have no fighting;--never till this
of Courland was there the least ill-nature from Russia! We are
become latterly the peaceable stepping-stone of Russia into Europe
and out of it;--what may be called the door-mat of Russia, useful
to her feet, when she is about paying visits or receiving them!
That is not a glorious fact, if it be a safe and "lucky" one;
nor do the Polish Notabilities at all phrase it in that manner.
But a fact it is; which has shown itself complete in the late
Czarina's and late August's time, and which had been on the growing
hand ever since Peter the Great gained his Battle of Pultawa, and
rose to the ascendency, instead of Karl and Sweden.

The Poles put fine colors on all this; and are much contented with
themselves. The Russians they regard as intrinsically an inferior
barbarous people; and to this day you will hear indignant Polack
Gentlemen bursting out in the same strain: "Still barbarian, sir;
no culture, no literature,"--inferior because they do not make
verses equal to ours! How it may be with the verses, I will not
decide: but the Russians are inconceivably superior in respect that
they have, to a singular degree among Nations, the gift of obeying,
of being commanded. Polack Chivalry sniffs at the mention of such a
gift. Polack Chivalry got sore stripes for wanting this gift.
And in the end, got striped to death, and flung out of the world,
for continuing blind to the want of it, and never acquiring it.

Beyond all the verses in Nature, it is essential to every Chivalry
and Nation and Man. "Polite Polish Society for the last thirty
years has felt itself to be in a most halcyon condition," says
Rulhiere: [Rulhiere, i. 216 (a noteworthy passage).] "given up to
the agreeable, and to that only;" charming evening-parties, and a
great deal of flirting; full of the benevolences, the
philanthropies, the new ideas,--given up especially to the pleasing
idea of "LAISSEZ-FAIRE, and everything will come right of itself."
"What a discovery!" said every liberal Polish mind: "for thousands
of years, how people did torment themselves trying to steer the
ship; never knowing that the plan was, To let go the helm, and
honestly sit down to your mutual amusements and powers
of pleasing!"

To this condition of beautifully phosphorescent rot-heap has Poland
ripened, in the helpless reigns of those poor Augusts;--the fulness
of time not now far off, one would say? It would complete the
picture, could I go into the state of what is called "Religion" in
Poland. Dissenterism, of various poor types, is extensive;
and, over against it, is such a type of Jesuit Fanaticism as has no
fellow in that day. Of which there have been truly savage and
sanguinary outbreaks, from time to time; especially one at Thorn,
forty years ago, which shocked Friedrich Wilhelm and the whole
Protestant world. [See supra, vi. 64 (and many old Pamphlets on
it).] Polish Orthodoxy, in that time, and perhaps still in ours, is
a thing worth noting. A late Tourist informs me, he saw on the
streets of Stettin, not long since, a drunk human creature
staggering about, who seemed to be a Baltic Sailor, just arrived;
the dirtiest, or among the dirtiest, of mankind; who, as he reeled
along, kept slapping his hands upon his breast, and shouting, in
exultant soliloquy, "Polack, Catholik!" _I_ am a Pole and Orthodox,
ye inferior two-legged entities!.--In regard to the Jesuit
Fanaticisms, at Thorn and elsewhere, no blame can attach to the
poor Augusts, who always leant the other way, what they durst or
could. Nor is specialty of blame due to them on any score; it was
"like People, like King," all along;--and they, such their luck,
have lived to bring in the fulness of time.

The Saxon Electors are again aspirants for this enviable Throne.
We have seen the beautiful Electress zealously soliciting Friedrich
for help in that project; Friedrich, in a dexterously graceful
manner, altogether declining. Hereditary Saxons are not to be the
expedient this time, it would seem; a grandiose Czarina has decided
otherwise. Why should not she? She and all the world are well
aware, Russia has been virtual lord of Poland this long time.
Credible enough that Russia intends to continue so; and also that
it will be able, without very much expenditure of new contrivance
for that object.

So far as can be guessed and assiduously deduced from RULHIERE,
with your best attention, Russian Catharine's interference seems
first of all to have been grounded on the grandiose philanthropic
principle. Astonishing to the liberal mind; yet to appearance true.
Rulhiere nowhere says so; but that is gradually one's own
perception of the matter; no other refuge for you out of flat
inconceivability. Philanthropic principle, we say, which the
Voltaires and Sages of that Epoch are prescribing as one's duty and
one's glory: "O ye Kings, why won't you do good to mankind, then?"
Catharine, a kind of She-Louis Quatorze, was equal to such a thing.
To put one's cast Lover into a throne,--poor soul, console him in
that manner;--and reduce the long-dissentient Country to blessed
composure under him: what a thing! Foolish Poniatowski, an empty,
windy creature, redolent of macassar and the finer sensibilities of
the heart: him she did make King of Poland; but to reduce the
long-dissentient Country to composure,--that was what she could not
do. Countries in that predicament are sometimes very difficult to
compose. The Czarina took, for above five years, a great deal of
trouble, without losing patience. The Czarina, after every new
effort, perceived with astonishment that she was farther from
success than ever. With astonishment; and gradually with
irritation, thickening and mounting towards indignation.

There is no reason to believe that the grandiose Woman handled, or
designed to handle, a doomed Poland in the merciless feline-
diabolic way set forth with wearisome loud reiteration in those
distracted Books; playing with the poor Country as cat does with
mouse; now lifting her fell paw, letting the poor mouse go loose in
floods of celestial joy and hope without limit; and always
clutching the hapless creature back into the blackness of death,
before eating and ending it. Reason first is, that the Czarina, as
we see her elsewhere, never was in the least a Cat or a Devil, but
a mere Woman; already virtual proprietress of Poland, and needing
little contrivance to keep it virtually hers. Reason second is,
that she had not the gift of prophecy, and could not foreknow the
Polish events of the next ten years, much less shape them out
beforehand, and preside over them, like a Devil or otherwise, in
the way supposed.

My own private conjecture, I confess, has rather grown to be, on
much reading of those RULHIERES and distracted Books, that the
Czarina,--who was a grandiose creature, with considerable
magnanimities, natural and acquired; with many ostentations, some
really great qualities and talents; in effect, a kind of She-Louis
Quatorze (if the reader will reflect on that Royal Gentleman, and
put him into petticoats in Russia, and change his improper females
for improper males),--that the Czarina, very clearly resolute to
keep Poland hers, had determined with herself to do something very
handsome in regard to Poland; and to gain glory, both with the
enlightened Philosophe classes and with her own proud heart, by her
treatment of that intricate matter. "On the one hand," thinks she,
or let us fancy she thinks, "here is Poland; a Country fallen
bedrid amid Anarchies, curable or incurable; much tormented with
religious intolerance at this time, hateful to the philosophic
mind; a hateful fanaticism growing upon it for forty years past
[though it is quite against Polish Law]; and the cries of oppressed
Dissidents [Dissenters, chiefly of the Protestant and of the Greek
persuasion] becoming more and more distressing to hear. And, on the
other hand, here is Poniatowski who, who--!"

Readers have not forgotten the handsome, otherwise extremely
paltry, young Polack, Stanislaus Poniatowski, whom Excellency
Williams took with him 8 or 9 years ago, ostensibly as "Secretary
of Legation," unostensibly as something very different?
Handsome Stanislaus did duly become Lover of the Grand-Duchess;
and has duly, in the course of Nature, some time ago (date
uncertain to me), become discarded Lover; the question rising, What
is to be done with that elegant inane creature, and his vaporous
sentimentalisms and sublime sorrows and disappointments? "Let us
make him King of Poland!" said the Czarina, who was always much the
gentleman with her discarded Lovers (more so, I should say, than
Louis Quatorze with his;--and indeed it is computed they cost her
in direct moneys about twenty millions sterling,--being numerous
and greedy; but never the least tiff of scolding or ill language):
[Castera ( Vie de Catharine II. ) has an
elaborate Appendix on this part of his subject.]--"King of Poland,
with furnishings, and set him handsomely up in the world! We will
close the Dissident Business for him, cure many a curable Anarchy
of Poland, to the satisfaction of Voltaire and all leading spirits
of mankind. He shall have outfit of Russian troops, poor creature;
and be able to put down Anarchies, and show himself a useful and
grateful Viceroy for us there. Outfit of 10,000 troops, a wise
Russian Manager: and the Question of the Dissidents to be settled
as the first glory of his reign!"

Ingenuous readers are invited to try, in their diffuse vague
RULHIERES, and unintelligible shrieky Polish Histories, whether
this notion does not rise on them as a possible human explanation,
more credible than the feline-diabolic one, which needs withal such
a foreknowledge, UNattainable by cat or devil? Poland must not rise
to be too strong a Country, and turn its back on Russia. No, truly;
nor, except by miraculous suspension of the Laws of Nature, is
there danger of that. But neither need Poland lie utterly lame and
prostrate, useless to Russia; and be tortured on its sick-bed with
Dissident Questions and Anarchies, curable by a strong Sovereign,
of whom much is expected by Voltaire and the leading spirits
of mankind.

What we shall have to say with perfect certainty, and what alone
concerns us in our own affair, is, FIRST, that Catharine did
proceed by this method, of crowning, fitting out and otherwise
setting up Stanislaus; did attempt settlement (and at one time
thought she had settled) the Dissident Question and some curable
Anarchies,--but stirred up such legions of incurable, waxing on her
hands, day after day, year after year, as were abundantly provoking
and astonishing:--and that within the next eight years she had
arrived, with Poland and her cargo of anarchies, at results which
struck the whole world dumb. Dumb with astonishment, for some time;
and then into tempests of vociferation more or less delirious,
which have never yet quite ended, though sinking gradually to lower
and lower stages of human vocality. Fact FIRST is abundantly
manifest. Nor is fact SECOND any longer doubtful, That King
Friedrich, in regard to all this, till a real crisis elsewhere had
risen, took little or no visible interest whatever; had one
unvarying course of conduct, that of punctually following Czarish
Majesty in every respect; instructing his Minister at Warsaw always
to second and reinforce the Russian one, as his one rule of policy
in that Country,--whose distracted procedures, imbecilities and
anarchies, are, beyond this point of keeping well with a grandiose
Czarina concerned in it, of no apparent practical interest to
Prussia or its King.

Friedrich, for a long time, passed with the Public for contriver of
the Catastrophe of Poland,--"felonious mortal," "monster of
maleficence," and what not, in consequence. Rulhiere, whose notion
of him is none of the friendliest nor correctest, acquits him of
this atrocity; declares him, till the very end, mainly or
altogether passive in it. Which I think is a little more than the
truth,--and only a little, as perhaps may appear by and by.
Beyond dispute, these Polish events did at last grow interesting
enough to Prussia and its King;--and it will be our task,
sufficient in this place, to extricate and riddle out what few of
these had any cardinal or notable quality, and put them down
(dated, if possible, and in intelligible form), as pertinent to
throwing light on this distressing matter, with careful exclusion
of the immense mass which can throw only darkness.

EX-LOVER PONIATOWSKI BECOMES KING OF POLAND (7th Sept. 1764),
AND IS CROWNED WITHOUT LOSS OF HIS HAIR.

WARSAW, 7th SEPTEMBER 1764, Stanislaus Poniatowski, by what
management of an Imperial Catharine upon an anarchic Nation readers
shall imagine AD LIBITUM, was elected, what they call elected, King
of Poland. Of course there had been preliminary Diets of
Convocation, much dieting, demonstrating and electing of imaginary
members of Diet,--only "ten persons massacred" in the business.
There was a Saxon Party; but no counter-candidate of that or any
other nation. King Friedrich, solicited by a charming Electress-
Dowager, decides to remain accurately passive. Polish emissaries
came entreating him. A certain Mockranowski, who had been a soldier
under him (never of much mark in that capacity, though now a
flamingly conspicuous "General" and Politician, in the new scene he
has got into), came passionately entreating (Potsdam, Summer of
1764, is all the date), "DONNEZ NOUS LE PRINCE HENRI, Give us
Prince Henri for a King!" the sound of which almost made Friedrich
turn pale: "Have you spoken or hinted of this to the Prince?"
"No, your Majesty." "Home, then, instantly; and not a whisper of it
again to any mortal!" [Rulhiere, ii. 268; Hermann, vi. 355-364.]
which, they say, greatly irritated Prince Henri, and left a
permanent sore-place in his mind, when he came to hear of it
long after.

"A question rises here," says one of my Notes, which perhaps I had
better have burnt: "At or about what dates did this glorious
Poniatowski become Lover of the Grand-Duchess, and then become
Ex-Lover? Nobody will say; or perhaps can? [Preuss (iv. 12) seems
to try, but does not succeed.] Would have been a small satisfaction
to us, and it is denied! 'Ritter Williams' (that is, Hanbury) must
have produced him at Petersburg some time in 1756; '11th January,
1757,' finding it would suit, Poniatowski appeared there on his own
footing as 'Ambassador from Warsaw,'"--(easy to get that kind of
credential from a devoted Warsaw, if you are succeeding at the
Court of Petersburg; "Warsaw watchfully makes that the rule of
distributing its honors; and, from freezing-point upwards, is the
most delicate thermometer," says Hermann somewhere). And this, is
our one date, "Poniatowski in business, SPRING, 1757;" of
"Poniatowski fallen bankrupt," date is totally wanting.

"Poniatowski's age is 32 gone;--how long out of Russia, readers
have to guess. Made his first public appearance on the streets of
Warsaw, in the late Election time, as a Captain of Patriot
Volunteers,--'Independence of Poland! Shall Poland be dictated to!"
cried Stanislaus and an indignant Public at one stage of the
affair. His Uncles Czartoryski were piloting him in; and in that
mad element, the cries, and shiftings of tack, had to be many.
[In HERMANN, v. 362-380 (still more in RULHIERE, ii. 119-289),
wearisome account of every particular.] He is Nephew, by his
mother, of these Czartoryskis; but is not by the father of very
high family. 'Ought he to be King of Poland?' argued some Polish
Emissary at Petersburg: 'His Grandfather was Land-steward to the
Sapiehas.' 'And if he himself had been it!' said the Empress,
inflexible, though with a blush.--It seems the family was really
good, though fallen poor; and, since that Land-steward phasis, had
bloomed well out again. His Father was conspicuous as a busy,
shifting kind of man, in the Charles-Twelfth and other troubles;
had died two years ago, as 'Castellan of Cracow;' always a dear
friend of Stanislaus Leczinski, who gets his death two years hence
[in 1766, as we have seen].

"King Stanislaus Poniatowski had five Brothers: two of them dead
long before this time; a third, still alive, was Bishop of
Something, Abbot of Something; ate his revenues in peace, and
demands silence from us. The other two, Casimir and Andreas, are
better worth naming,--especially the Son of one of them is.
Casimir, the eldest, is 'Grand Crown-Chamberlain' in the days now
coming, is also 'Starost of Zips [a Country you may note the name
of!]--and has a Son,' who is NOT the remarkable one. Andreas, the
second Brother (died 1773), was in the Austrian Service, 'Ordnance-
Master,' and a man of parts and weight;--who has been here at
Warsaw, ardently helping, in the late Election time. He too had a
Son (at this time a child in arms),--who is really the remarkable
'Nephew of King Stanislaus,' and still deserves a word from us.

"This Nephew, bred as an Austrian soldier, like his Father, is the
JOSEPH PONIATOWSKI, who was very famous in the Newspapers fifty
years ago. By all appearance, a man of some real patriotism, energy
and worth. He had tried to believe (though, I think, never rightly
able) what his omnipotent Napoleon had promised him, that extinct
Poland should be resuscitated; and he fought and strove very
fiercely, his Poles and he, in that faith or half-faith.
And perished, fiercely fighting for Napoleon, fiercely covering
Napoleon's retreat when his game was lost: horse and man plunged
into the Elster River (Leipzig Country, October 19th, 1813, evening
of the 'Battle of the Nations' there), and sank forever;--and the
last gleam of Poland along with him. [ Biographie
Universelle (º Poniatowski, Joseph), xxxv. 349-359.]
Not even a momentary gleam of hope for her, in the sane or half-
sane kind, since that,--though she now and then still tries it in
the insane: the more to my regret, for her and others!

"Besides these three Brothers, King Stanislaus had two Sisters
still living: one of them Wife of a very high Zamoiski; the other
of a ditto Branicki (pronounce BraniTZki)--him whom our German
Books call KRON-GROSSFELDHERR; (Grand Crown-General,' if the Crown
have any soldiers at all; the sublime, debauched old Branicki, of
whom Rulhiere is continually talking, and never reports anything
but futilities in a futile manner. So much is futile, and not worth
reporting, in this Polish element!--King Stanislaus himself was
born 17th January, 1732; played King of shreds and patches till
1790,--or even farther (not till 1795 did Catharine pluck the paper
tabard quite off him); he died in Petersburg, February 11th or
12th) 1798." After such a life!--

Stanislaus was crowned 25th November, 1764. He needs, as
preliminary, to be anointed, on the bare scalp of him, with holy
oil before crowning; ought to have his head close-shaved with that
view. Stanislaus, having an uncommonly fine head of hair, shuddered
at the barbarous idea; absolutely would not: whereupon delay,
consultation; and at length some artificial scalp, or second skull,
of pasteboard or dyed leather, was contrived for the poor man,
which comfortably took the oiling in a vicarious way, with the
ambrosial locks well packed out of sight under it, and capable of
flowing out again next day, as if nothing had happened. [Rulhiere.]
Not a sublime specimen of Ornamental Human Nature, this poor
Stanislaus! Ornamental wholly: the body of him, and the mind of
him, got up for representation; and terribly plucked to pieces on
the stage of the world. You may try to drop a tear over him, but
will find mostly that you cannot.

FOR SEVERAL YEARS THE DISSIDENT QUESTION CANNOT BE GOT SETTLED;
CONFEDERATION OF RADOM (23d June, 1767-5th March, 1768)
PUSHES IT INTO SETTLEMENT.

For several years after this feat of the false scalp, through long
volumes, wearisome even in RULHIERE, there turns up nothing which
can now be called memorable. The settling of the Dissident Question
proves extremely tedious to an impatient Czarina; as to curing of
the other curable Anarchies, there is absolutely nothing but a
knitting up by A, with a ravelling-out again by B, and no progress
discernible whatever. Impatient Czarina ardently pushes on some
Dissident settlement,--seconded by King Friedrich and the chief
Protestant Courts, London included, and by the European leading
spirits everywhere,--through endless difficulties: finds native
Orthodoxy an unexpectedly stiff matter; Bishops generally having a
fanaticism which is wonderful to think of, and which keeps mounting
higher and higher. Till at length there will Images of the Virgin
take to weeping,--as they generally do in such cases, when in the
vicinity of brew-houses and conveniences; [Nicolai, in his TRAVELS
OVER GERMANY, doggedly undertook to overhaul one of those weeping
Virgins (somewhere in Austria, I think); and found her, he says, to
depend on subterranean percolation of steam from a Brewery not far
off.]--a Carmelite Monk go about the country working miracles;
and, in short, an extremely ugly phasis of religious human nature
disclose itself to the afflicted reader. King Friedrich thinks, had
it not been for this Dissident Question, things would have taken
their old Saxon complexion, and Poland might have rotted on as
heretofore, perhaps a good while longer.

As to the knitting-up and ravelling-out again, which is called
curing of the other anarchies, no reader can or need say anything:
it seems to be a most painful knitting-up, by the Czartoryskis
chiefly, then an instant ravelling out by malign Opposition parties
of various indistinct complexion; the knitting, the ravelling, and
the malign Opposition parties, alike indistinct and without
interest to mankind. A certain drunken, rather brutal Phantasm of a
Prince Radzivil, who hates the Czartoryskis, and is dreadfully
given to drink, to wasteful ambitions and debaucheries, figures
much in these businesses; is got banished and confiscated, by some
Confederation formed; then, by new Confederations, is recalled and
reinstated,--worse if possible than ever. The thing is reality; but
it reads like a Phantasmagory produced by Lapland Witches, under
presidency of Diabolus (very certainly the Devil presiding, as you
see at all turns),--and is not worth understanding, were it
even easy.

Much semi-intelligible, wholly forgettable stuff about King
Stanislaus and his difficulties, and his duplicities and
treacherous imbecilities, [Hermann, v. 400, &c.; Rulhiere PASSIM.]
now of interest to no mortal. Stanislaus is at one time out with
the uncles Czartoryski, at another in with these worthy gentlemen:
a man not likely to cure Anarchies, unless wishing would do it.
On the Dissident Question itself he needs spurring: a King of
liberal ideas, yes; but with such flames of fanaticism under the
nose of him. In regard to the Dissident and all other curative
processes he is languid, evasive, for moments recalcitrant to
Russian suggestions; a lost imbecile,--forget him, with or without
a tear. He has still a good deal of so-called gallantry on his
hands; flies to his harem when outside things go contradictory.
[Hermann, v. 402, &c.] Think of malign Journalists printing this
bit of Letter at one time, to do him ill in a certain quarter:
"Oh, come to me, my Princess! Dearer than all Empresses:--imperial
charms, what were they to thine for a heart that has--" with more
of the like stuff, for a Czarina's behoof.

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