History of Friedrich II of Prussia V 11

T >> Thomas Carlyle >> History of Friedrich II of Prussia V 11

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Prepared by D.R. Thompson

BOOK XI.

FRIEDRICH TAKES THE REINS IN HAND.

June-December, 1740.

Chapter I.

PHENOMENA OF FRIEDRICH'S ACCESSION.

In Berlin, from Tuesday, 31st May, 1740, day of the late King's
death, till the Thursday following, the post was stopped and the
gates closed; no estafette can be despatched, though Dickens and
all the Ambassadors are busy writing. On the Thursday, Regiments,
Officers, principal Officials having sworn, and the new King being
fairly in the saddle, estafettes and post-boys shoot forth at the
top of their speed; and Rumor, towards every point of the compass,
apprises mankind what immense news there is. [Dickens (in State-
Paper Office), 4th June, 1740.]

A King's Accession is always a hopeful phenomenon to the public;
more especially a young King's, who has been talked of for his
talents and aspirings,--for his sufferings, were it nothing more,
--and whose ANTI-MACHIAVEL is understood to be in the press.
Vaguely everywhere there has a notion gone abroad that this young
King will prove considerable. Here at last has a Lover of
Philosophy got upon the throne, and great philanthropies and
magnanimities are to be expected, think rash editors and idle
mankind. Rash editors in England and elsewhere, we observe, are
ready to believe that Friedrich has not only disbanded the Potsdam
Giants; but means to "reduce the Prussian Army one half" or so,
for ease (temporary ease which we hope will be lasting) of parties
concerned; and to go much upon emancipation, political rose-water,
and friendship to humanity, as we now call it.

At his first meeting of Council, they say, he put this question,
"Could not the Prussian Army be reduced to 45,000?" The excellent
young man. To which the Council had answered, "Hardly, your
Majesty! The Julich-and-Berg affair is so ominous hitherto!"
These may be secrets, and dubious to people out of doors, thinks a
wise editor; but one thing patent to the day was this, surely
symbolical enough: On one of his Majesty's first drives to Potsdam
or from it, a thousand children,--in round numbers a thousand of
them, all with the RED STRING round their necks, and liable to be
taken for soldiers, if needed in the regiment of their Canton,--
"a thousand children met this young King at a turn of his road;
and with shrill unison of wail, sang out: "Oh, deliver us from
slavery,"--from the red threads, your Majesty. Why should poor we
be liable to suffer hardship for our Country or otherwise, your
Majesty! Can no one else be got to do it? sang out the thousand
children. And his Majesty assented on the spot, thinks the rash
editor. [ Gentleman's Magazine (London,
1740), x. 318; Newspapers, &c.] "Goose, Madam?" exclaimed a
philanthropist projector once, whose scheme of sweeping chimneys
by pulling a live goose down through them was objected to:
"Goose, Madam? You can take two ducks, then, if you are so sorry
for the goose!"--Rash editors think there is to be a reign of
Astraea Redux in Prussia, by means of this young King; and forget
to ask themselves, as the young King must by no means do, How far
Astraea may be possible, for Prussia and him?

At home, too, there is prophesying enough, vague hope enough,
which for most part goes wide of the mark. This young King, we
know, did prove considerable; but not in the way shaped out for
him by the public;--it was in far other ways! For no public in the
least knows, in such cases: nor does the man himself know, except
gradually and if he strive to learn. As to the public,--
"Doubtless," says a friend of mine, "doubtless it was the Atlantic
Ocean that carried Columbus to America; lucky for the Atlantic,
and for Columbus and us: but the Atlantic did not quite vote that
way from the first; nay ITS votes, I believe, were very various at
different stages of the matter!" This is a truth which kings and
men, not intending to be drift-logs or waste brine obedient to the
Moon, are much called to have in mind withal, from perhaps an
early stage of their voyage.

Friedrich's actual demeanor in these his first weeks, which is
still decipherable if one study well, has in truth a good deal of
the brilliant, of the popular-magnanimous; but manifests strong
solid quality withal, and a head steadier than might have been
expected. For the Berlin world is all in a rather Auroral
condition; and Friedrich too is,--the chains suddenly cut loose,
and such hopes opened for the young man. He has great things
ahead; feels in himself great things, and doubtless exults in the
thought of realizing them. Magnanimous enough, popular, hopeful
enough, with Voltaire and the highest of the world looking on:--
but yet he is wise, too; creditably aware that there are limits,
that this is a bargain, and the terms of it inexorable. We discern
with pleasure the old veracity of character shining through this
giddy new element; that all these fine procedures are at least
unaffected, to a singular degree true, and the product of nature,
on his part; and that, in short, the complete respect for Fact,
which used to be a quality of his, and which is among the highest
and also rarest in man, has on no side deserted him at present.

A trace of airy exuberance, of natural exultancy, not quite
repressible, on the sudden change to freedom and supreme power
from what had gone before: perhaps that also might be legible, if
in those opaque bead-rolls which are called Histories of Friedrich
anything human could with certainty be read! He flies much about
from place to place; now at Potsdam, now at Berlin, at
Charlottenburg, Reinsberg; nothing loath to run whither business
calls him, and appear in public: the gazetteer world, as we
noticed, which has been hitherto a most mute world, breaks out
here and there into a kind of husky jubilation over the great
things he is daily doing, and rejoices in the prospect of having a
Philosopher King; which function the young man, only twenty-eight
gone, cannot but wish to fulfil for the gazetteers and the world.
He is a busy man; and walks boldly into his grand enterprise of
"making men happy," to the admiration of Voltaire and an
enlightened public far and near.

Bielfeld speaks of immense concourses of people crowding about
Charlottenburg, to congratulate, to solicit, to &c.; tells us how
he himself had to lodge almost in outhouses, in that royal village
of hope, His emotions at Reinsberg, and everybody's, while
Friedrich Wilhelm lay dying, and all stood like greyhounds on the
slip; and with what arrow-swiftness they shot away when the great
news came: all this he has already described at wearisome length,
in his fantastic semi-fabulous way. [Bielfeld, i. 68-77; ib. 81.]'
Friedrich himself seemed moderately glad to see Bielfeld; received
his high-flown congratulations with a benevolent yet somewhat
composed air; and gave him afterwards, in the course of weeks, an
unexpectedly small appointment: To go to Hanover, under Truchsess
von Waldburg, and announce our Accession. Which is but a simple,
mostly formal service; yet perhaps what Bielfeld is best equal to.

The Britannic Majesty, or at least his Hanover people have been
beforehand with this civility; Baron Munchhausen, no doubt by
orders given for such contingency, had appeared at Berlin with the
due compliment and condolence almost on the first day of the New
Reign; first messenger of all on that errand; Britannic Majesty
evidently in a conciliatory humor,--having his dangerous Spanish
War on hand. Britannic Majesty in person, shortly after, gets
across to Hanover; and Friedrich despatches Truchsess, with
Bielfeld adjoined, to return the courtesy.

Friedrich does not neglect these points of good manners;
along with which something of substantial may be privately
conjoined. For example, if he had in secret his eye on Julich and
Berg, could anything be fitter than to ascertain what the French
will think of such an enterprise? What the French; and next to
them what the English, that is to say, Hanoverians, who meddle
much in affairs of the Reich. For these reasons and others he
likewise, probably with more study than in the Bielfeld case,
despatches Colonel Camas to make his compliment at the French
Court, and in an expert way take soundings there. Camas, a fat
sedate military gentleman, of advanced years, full of observation,
experience and sound sense,--"with one arm, which he makes do the
work of two, and nobody can notice that the other arm resting in
his coat-breast is of cork, so expert is he,"--will do in this
matter what is feasible; probably not much for the present. He is
to call on Voltaire, as he passes, who is in Holland again, at the
Hague for some months back; and deliver him "a little cask of
Hungary Wine," which probably his Majesty had thought exquisite.
Of which, and the other insignificant passages between them, we
hear more than enough in the writings and correspondences of
Voltaire about this time.

In such way Friedrich disposes of his Bielfelds; who are rather
numerous about him now and henceforth. Adventurers from all
quarters, especially of the literary type, in hopes of being
employed, much hovered round Friedrich through his whole reign.
But they met a rather strict judge on arriving; it cannot be said
they found it such a Goshen as they expected.

Favor, friendly intimacy, it is visible from the first, avails
nothing with this young King; beyond and before all things he will
have his work done, and looks out exclusively for the man ablest
to do it. Hence Bielfeld goes to Hanover, to grin out euphuisms,
and make graceful courtbows to our sublime little Uncle there.
On the other hand, Friedrich institutes a new Knighthood, ORDER OF
MERIT so called; which indeed is but a small feat, testifying mere
hope and exuberance as yet; and may even be made worse than
nothing, according to the Knights he shall manage to have.
Happily it proved a successful new Order in this last all-
essential particular; and, to the end of Friedrich's life,
continued to be a great and coveted distinction among
the Prussians.

Beyond doubt this is a radiant enough young Majesty; entitled to
hope, and to be the cause of hope. Handsome, to begin with;
decidedly well-looking, all say, and of graceful presence, though
hardly five feet seven, and perhaps stouter of limb than the
strict Belvedere standard. [Height, it appears, was five feet five
inches (Rhenish), which in English measure is five feet seven or a
hair's-breadth less. Preuss, twice over, by a mistake unusual with
him, gives "five feet two inches three lines" as the correct
cipher (which it is of NAPOLEON'S measure in FRENCH feet);
then settles on the above dimensions from unexceptionable
authority (Preuss, Buch fur Jedermann,
i. 18; Preuss, Fredrich der Grosse, i. 39
and 419).] Has a fine free expressive face; nothing of austerity
in it; not a proud face, or not too proud, yet rapidly flashing on
you all manner of high meanings. [Wille's Engraving after Pesne
(excellent, both Picture and Engraving) is reckoned the best
Likeness in that form.] Such a man, in the bloom of his years;
with such a possibility ahead, and Voltaire and mankind waiting
applausive!--Let us try to select, and extricate into coherence
and visibility out of those Historical dust-heaps, a few of the
symptomatic phenomena, or physiognomic procedures of Friedrich in
his first weeks of Kingship, by way of contribution to some
Portraiture of his then inner-man.

FRIEDRICH WILL MAKE MEN HAPPY: CORN-MAGAZINES.

On the day after his Accession, Officers and chief Ministers
taking the Oath, Friedrich, to his Officers, "on whom he counts
for the same zeal now which he had witnessed as their comrade,"
recommends mildness of demeanor from the higher to the lower, and
that the common soldier be not treated with harshness when not
deserved: and to his Ministers he is still more emphatic, in the
like or a higher strain. Officially announcing to them, by Letter,
that a new Reign has commenced, he uses these words, legible soon
after to a glad Berlin public: "Our grand care will be, To further
the Country's well-being, and to make every one of our subjects
(EINEN JEDEN UNSERER UNTERTHANEN) contented and happy. Our will
is, not that you strive to enrich Us by vexation of Our subjects;
but rather that you aim steadily as well towards the advantage of
the Country as Our particular interest, forasmuch as We make no
difference between these two objects," but consider them one and
the same. This is written, and gets into print within the month;
and his Majesty, that same day (Wednesday, 2d June), when it came
to personal reception, and actual taking of the Oath, was pleased
to add in words, which also were printed shortly, this comfortable
corollary: "My will henceforth is, If it ever chance that my
particular interest and the general good of my Countries should
seem to go against each other,--in that case, my will is, That the
latter always be preferred." [Dickens, Despatch, 4th June, 1740:
Preuss, Friedrichs Jugend und Thronbesteigung italic> (Berlin, 1840), p. 325;--quoting from the Berlin
Newspapers of 28th June and 2d July, 1740.]

This is a fine dialect for incipient Royalty; and it is brand-
new at that time. It excites an admiration in the then
populations, which to us, so long used to it and to what commonly
comes of it, is not conceivable at once. There can be no doubt the
young King does faithfully intend to develop himself in the way of
making men happy; but here, as elsewhere, are limits which he will
recognize ahead, some of them perhaps nearer than was expected.

Meanwhile his first acts, in this direction, correspond to these
fine words. The year 1740, still grim with cold into the heart of
summer, bids fair to have a late poor harvest, and famine
threatens to add itself to other hardships there have been.
Recognizing the actualities of the case, what his poor Father
could not, he opens the Public Granaries,--a wise resource they
have in Prussian countries against the year of scarcity;--orders
grain to be sold out, at reasonable rates, to the suffering poor;
and takes the due pains, considerable in some cases, that this be
rendered feasible everywhere in his dominions. "Berlin, 2d June,"
is the first date of this important order; fine program to his
Ministers, which, we read, is no sooner uttered, than some
performance follows. An evident piece of wisdom and humanity;
for which doubtless blessings of a very sincere kind rise to him
from several millions of his fellow-mortals.

Nay furthermore, as can be dimly gathered, this scarcity
continuing, some continuous mode of management was set on foot for
the Poor; and there is nominated, with salary, with outline of
plan and other requisites, as "Inspector of the Poor," to his own
and our surprise, M. Jordan, late Reader to the Crown-Prince, and
still much the intimate of his royal Friend. Inspector who seems
to do his work very well. And in the November coming this is what
we see: "One thousand poor old women, the destitute of Berlin, set
to spin," at his Majesty's charges; vacant houses, hired for them
in certain streets and suburbs, have been new-planked,
partitioned, warmed; and spinning is there for any diligent female
soul. There a thousand of them sit, under proper officers, proper
wages, treatment;--and the hum of their poor spindles, and of
their poor inarticulate old hearts, is a comfort, if one chance to
think of it.--Of "distressed needlewomen" who cannot sew, nor be
taught to do it; who, in private truth, are mutinous maid-servants
come at last to the net upshot of their anarchies; of these, or of
the like incurable phenomena, I hear nothing in Berlin; and can
believe that, under this King, Indigence itself may still have
something of a human aspect, not a brutal or diabolic as is
commoner in some places.--This is one of Friedrich's first acts,
this opening of the Corn-magazines, and arrangements for the
Destitute; [ Helden-Geschichte, i. 367.
Rodenbeck, Tagebuch aus Friedrichs des Grossen
Regentenleben (Berlin, 1840), i. 2, 26 (2d June,
October, 1740): a meritorious, laborious, though essentially
chaotic Book, unexpectedly futile of result to the reader; settles
for each Day of Friedrich's Reign, so far as possible, where
Friedrich was and what doing; fatally wants all index &c., as
usual.] and of this there can be no criticism. The sound of hungry
pots set boiling, on judicious principles; the hum of those old
women's spindles in the warm rooms: gods and men are well pleased
to hear such sounds; and accept the same as part, real though
infinitesimally small, of the sphere-harmonies of this Universe!

ABOLITION OF LEGAL TORTURE.

Friedrich makes haste, next, to strike into Law-improvements.
It is but the morrow after this of the Corn-magazines, by
KABINETS-ORDRE (Act of Parliament such as they can have in that
Country, where the Three Estates sit all under one Three-cornered
Hat, and the debates are kept silent, and only the upshot of them,
more or less faithfully, is made public),--by Cabinet Order,
3d June, 1740, he abolishes the use of Torture in Criminal Trials.
[Preuss, Friedrichs Jugend und Thronbesteigung italic> (Berlin, 1840,--a minor Book of Preuss's), p. 340.
Rodenbeck, i. 14 ("3d June").] Legal Torture, "Question" as they
mildly call it, is at an end from this date. Not in any Prussian
Court shall a "question" try for answer again by that savage
method. The use of Torture had, I believe, fallen rather obsolete
in Prussia; but now the very threat of it shall vanish,--the
threat of it, as we may remember, had reached Friedrich himself,
at one time. Three or four years ago, it is farther said, a dark
murder happened in Berlin: Man killed one night in the open
streets; murderer discoverable by no method,--unless he were a
certain CANDIDATUS of Divinity to whom some trace of evidence
pointed, but who sorrowfully persisted in absolute and total
denial. This poor Candidatus had been threatened with the rack;
and would most likely have at length got it, had not the real
murderer been discovered,--much to the discredit of the rack in
Berlin. This Candidatus was only threatened; nor do I know when
the last actual instance in Prussia was; but in enlightened
France, and most other countries, there was as yet no scruple upon
it. Barbier, the Diarist at Paris, some time after this, tells us
of a gang of thieves there, who were regularly put to the torture;
and "they blabbed too, ILS ONT JASE," says Barbier with official
jocosity. [Barbier, Journal Historique du Regne de Louis
XV. (Paris, 1849), ii. 338 (date "Dec. 1742").]

Friedrich's Cabinet Order, we need not say, was greeted
everywhere, at home and abroad, by three rounds of applause;--in
which surely all of us still join; though the PER CONTRA also is
becoming visible to some of us, and our enthusiasm grows less
complete than formerly. This was Friedrich's first step in Law-
Reform, done on his fourth day of Kingship. A long career in that
kind lies ahead of him; in reform of Law, civil as well as
criminal, his efforts ended with life only. For his love of
Justice was really great; and the mendacities and wiggeries,
attached to such a necessary of life as Law, found no favor from
him at any time.

WILL HAVE PHILOSOPHERS ABOUT HIM, AND A REAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES

To neglect the Philosophies, Fine Arts, interests of Human
Culture, he is least of all likely. The idea of building up the
Academy of Sciences to its pristine height, or far higher, is
evidently one of those that have long lain in the Crown-Prince's
mind, eager to realize themselves. Immortal Wolf, exiled but safe
at Marburg, and refusing to return in Friedrich Wilhelm's time,
had lately dedicated a Book to the Crown-Prince; indicating that
perhaps, under a new Reign, he might be more persuadable.
Friedrich makes haste to persuade; instructs the proper person,
Reverend Herr Reinbeck, Head of the Consistorium at Berlin, to
write and negotiate. "All reasonable conditions shall be granted"
the immortal Wolf,--and Friedrich adds with his own hand as
Postscript: "I request you (IHN) to use all diligence about Wolf.
A man that seeks truth, and loves it, must be reckoned precious in
any human society; and I think you will make a conquest in the
realm of truth if you persuade Wolf hither again." [In
OEuvres de Frederic (xxvii. ii. 185), the Letter
given.] This is of date June 6th; not yet a week since Friedrich
came to be King. The Reinbeck-Wolf negotiation which ensued can be
read in Busching by the curious. [Busching's Beitrage
(? Freiherr von Wolf), i. 63-137.] It represents to
us a croaky, thrifty, long-headed old Herr Professor, in no haste
to quit Marburg except for something better: "obliged to wear
woollen shoes and leggings;" "bad at mounting stairs;" and
otherwise needing soft treatment. Willing, though with caution, to
work at an Academy of Sciences;--but dubious if the French are so
admirable as they seem to themselves in such operations.
Veteran Wolf, one dimly begins to learn, could himself build a
German Academy of Sciences, to some purpose, if encouraged!
This latter was probably the stone of stumbling in that direction.
Veteran Wolf did not get to be President in the New Academy of
Sciences; but was brought back, "streets all in triumph," to his
old place at Halle; and there, with little other work that was
heard of, but we hope in warm shoes and without much mounting of
stairs, lived peaceably victorious the rest of his days.
Friedrich's thoughts are not of a German home-built Academy, but
of a French one: and for this he already knows a builder;
has silently had him in his eye, these two years past,--Voltaire
giving hint, in the LETTER we once heard of at Loo. Builder shall
be that sublime Maupertuis; scientific lion of Paris, ever since
his feat in the Polar regions, and the charming Narrative he gave
of it. "What a feat, what a book!" exclaimed the Parisian
cultivated circles, male and female, on that occasion;
and Maupertuis, with plenty of bluster in him carefully
suppressed, assents in a grandly modest way. His Portraits are in
the Printshops ever since; one very singular Portrait, just coming
out (at which there is some laughing): a coarse-featured,
blusterous, rather triumphant-looking man, blusterous, though
finely complacent for the nonce; in copious dressing-gown and fur
cap; comfortably SQUEEZING the Earth and her meridians flat (as if
HE had done it), with his left hand; and with the other, and its
outstretched finger, asking mankind, "Are not you aware, then?"--
"Are not we!" answers Voltaire by and by, with endless waggeries
upon him, though at present so reverent. Friedrich, in these same
days, writes this Autograph; which who of men or lions
could resist?

TO MONSIEUR DE MAUPERTUIS, at Paris.

(No date;--datable, June, 1740.)

"My heart and my inclination excited in me, from the moment I
mounted the throne, the desire of having you here, that you might
put our Berlin Academy into the shape you alone are capable of
giving it. Come, then, come and insert into this wild crab-tree
the graft of the Sciences, that it may bear fruit. You have shown
the Figure of the Earth to mankind; show also to a King how sweet
it is to possess such a man as you.

"Monsieur de Maupertuis,--votre tres-affectionne

"FEDERIC" (SIC).
[ OEuvres, xvii. i. 334. The fantastic
"Federic," instead of "Frederic," is, by this time, the common
signature to French Letters.]

This Letter--how could Maupertuis prevent some accident in such a
case?--got into the Newspapers; glorious for Friedrich, glorious
for Maupertuis; and raised matters to a still higher pitch.
Maupertuis is on the road, and we shall see him before long.

AND EVERY ONE SHALL GET TO HEAVEN IN HIS OWN WAY.

Here is another little fact which had immense renown at home and
abroad, in those summer months and long afterwards.

June 22d, 1740, the GEISTLICHE DEPARTEMENT (Board of Religion, we
may term it) reports that the Roman-Catholic Schools, which have
been in use these eight years past, for children of soldiers
belonging to that persuasion, "are, especially in Berlin,
perverted, directly in the teeth of Royal Ordinance, 1732, to
seducing Protestants into Catholicism;" annexed, or ready for
annexing, "is the specific Report of Fiscal-General to this
effect:"--upon which, what would it please his Majesty to direct
us to do?

His Majesty writes on the margin these words, rough and ready,
which we give with all their grammatical blotches on them;
indicating a mind made up on one subject, which was much more
dubious then, to most other minds, than it now is:--

"Die Religionen Musen (MUSSEN) alle Tollerirt (TOLERIRT) werden,
und Mus (MUSS) der Fiscal nuhr (NUR) das Auge darauf haben, das
(DASS) keine der andern abrug Tuhe (ABBRUCH THUE), den (DENN) hier
mus (MUSS) ein jeder nach seiner Fasson Selich (FACON SELIG)
werden." [Preuss, Thronbesteigung, p. 333;
Rodenbeck, IN DIE.

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