History of Friedrich II of Prussia V 1
T >> Thomas Carlyle >> History of Friedrich II of Prussia V 1
They had stopped in Rotterdam once, on a certain journey homewards
from Flanders and the Baths of Aix-la-Chapelle, to see that
admirable sage, the doubter Bayle. Their sublime messenger roused
the poor man, in his garret there, in the Bompies,--after dark:
but he had a headache that night; was in bed, and could not come.
He followed them next day; leaving his paper imbroglios, his
historical, philosophical, anti-theological marine-stores;
and suspended his neverending scribble, on their behalf;--but
would not accept a pension, and give it up. [Erman, pp. 111, 112.
Date is 1700 (late in the autumn probably).]
They were shrewd, noticing, intelligent and lively women;
persuaded that there was some nobleness for man beyond what the
tailor imparts to him; and even very eager to discover it,
had they known how. In these very days, while our little Friedrich
at Berlin lies in his cradle, sleeping most of his time,
sage Leibnitz, a rather weak but hugely ingenious old gentleman,
with bright eyes and long nose, with vast black peruke and bandy
legs, is seen daily in the Linden Avenue at Hanover (famed Linden
Alley, leading from Town Palace to Country one, a couple of miles
long, rather disappointing when one sees it), daily driving or
walking towards Herrenhausen, where the Court, where the old
Electress is, who will have a touch of dialogue with him to
diversify her day. Not very edifying dialogue, we may fear;
yet once more, the best that can be had in present circumstances.
Here is some lunar reflex of Versailles, which is a polite court;
direct rays there are from the oldest written Gospels and the
newest; from the great unwritten Gospel of the Universe itself;
and from one's own real effort, more or less devout, to read all
these aright. Let us not condemn that poor French element of
Eclecticism, Scepticism, Tolerance, Theodicea, and Bayle of the
Bompies versus the College of Saumur. Let us admit that it was
profitable, at least that it was inevitable; let us pity it,
and be thankful for it, and rejoice that we are well out of it.
Scepticism, which is there beginning at the very top of the world-
tree, and has to descend through all the boughs with terrible
results to mankind, is as yet pleasant, tinting the leaves with
fine autumnal red.
Sophie Charlotte partook of her Mother's tendencies; and carried
them with her to Berlin, there to be expanded in many ways into
ampler fulfilment. She too had the sage Leibnitz often with her,
at Berlin; no end to her questionings of him; eagerly desirous to
draw water from that deep well,--a wet rope, with cobwebs sticking
to it, too often all she got; endless rope, and the bucket never
coming to view. Which, however, she took patiently, as a thing
according to Nature. She had her learned Beausobres and other
Reverend Edict-of-Nantes gentlemen, famed Berlin divines; whom,
if any Papist notability, Jesuit ambassador or the like, happened
to be there, she would set disputing with him, in the Soiree at
Charlottenburg. She could right well preside over such a battle of
the Cloud-Titans, and conduct the lightnings softly, without
explosions. There is a pretty and very characteristic Letter of
hers, still pleasant to read, though turning on theologies now
fallen dim enough; addressed to Father Vota, the famous Jesuit,
King's-confessor, and diplomatist, from Warsaw, who had been doing
his best in one such rencontre before her Majesty (date March,
1703),--seemingly on a series of evenings, in the intervals of his
diplomatic business; the Beausobre champions being introduced to
him successively, one each evening, by Queen Sophie Charlotte.
To all appearance the fencing had been keen; the lightnings in
need of some dexterous conductor. Vota, on his way homeward,
had written to apologize for the sputterings of fire struck out of
him in certain pinches of the combat; says, It was the rough
handling the Primitive Fathers got from these Beausobre gentlemen,
who indeed to me, Vota in person, under your Majesty's fine
presidency, were politeness itself, though they treated the
Fathers so ill. Her Majesty, with beautiful art, in this Letter,
smooths the raven plumage of Vota;--and, at the same time, throws
into him, as with invisible needle-points, an excellent dose of
acupuncturation, on the subject of the Primitive Fathers and the
Ecumenic Councils, on her own score. Let us give some Excerpt,
in condensed state:--
"How can St. Jerome, for example, be a key to Scripture?" she
insinuates; citing from Jerome this remarkable avowal of his
method of composing books; "especially of his method in that Book,
Commentary on the Galatians, where he
accuses both Peter and Paul of simulation and even of hypocrisy.
The great St. Augustine has been charging him with this sad fact,"
says her Majesty, who gives chapter and verse; ["Epist. 28*, edit.
Paris." And Jerome's answer, "Ibid. Epist. 76*."] "and Jerome
answers: 'I followed the Commentaries of Origen, of'"--five or six
different persons, who turned out mostly to be heretics before
Jerome had quite done with them in coming years!--"'And to confess
the honest truth to you,' continues Jerome, 'I read all that;
and after having crammed my head with a great many things, I sent
for my amanuensis, and dictated to him now my own thoughts,
now those of others, without much recollecting the order,
nor sometimes the words, nor even the sense.' In another place (in
the Book itself farther on [ "Commentary on the Galatians,
chap. iii."]), he says: 'I do not myself write;
I have an amanuensis, and I dictate to him what comes into my
mouth. If I wish to reflect a little, to say the thing better or a
better thing, he knits his brows, and the whole look of him tells
me sufficiently that he cannot endure to wait.'"--Here is a sacred
old gentleman, whom it is not safe to depend on for interpreting
the Scriptures, thinks her Majesty; but does not say so, leaving
Father Vota to his reflections.
Then again, coming to Councils, she quotes St. Gregory Nazianzen
upon him; who is truly dreadful in regard to Ecumenic Councils of
the Church,--and indeed may awaken thoughts of Deliberative
Assemblies generally, in the modern constitutional mind. "He says,
[ "Greg. Nazian. de Vita sua." ] No Council
ever was successful; so many mean human passions getting into
conflagration there; with noise, with violence and uproar, 'more
like those of a tavern or still worse place,'--these are his
words. He, for his own share, had resolved to avoid all such
'rendezvousing of the Geese and Cranes, flocking together to
throttle and tatter one another in that sad manner.' Nor had
St. Theodoret much opinion of the Council of Nice, except as a
kind of miracle. 'Nothing good to be expected from Councils,'
says he, 'except when God is pleased to interpose, and destroy the
machinery of the Devil.'"
--With more of the like sort; all delicate, as invisible needle-
points, in her Majesty's hand. [Letter undated (datable
"Lutzelburg, March, 1708,") is to be found entire, with all its
adjuncts, in Erman, pp. 246-255. It was
subsequently translated by Toland, and published here, as an
excellent Polemical Piece,--entirely forgotten in our time
( A Letter against Popery by Sophia Charlotte, the late
Queen of Prussia: Being, &c. &c. London, 1712).
But the finest Duel of all was probably that between Beausobre and
Toland himself (reported by Beausobre, in something of a crowing
manner, in Erman, pp. 203-241, "October,
1701"), of which Toland makes no mention anywhere.] What is Father
Vota to say?--The modern reader looks through these chinks into a
strange old scene, the stuff of it fallen obsolete, the spirit of
it not, nor worthy to fall.
These were Sophie Charlotte's reunions; very charming in their
time. At which how joyful for Irish Toland to be present, as was
several times his luck. Toland, a mere broken heretic in his own
country, who went thither once as Secretary to some Embassy
(Embassy of Macclesfield's, 1701, announcing that the English
Crown had fallen Hanover-wards), and was no doubt glad, poor
headlong soul, to find himself a gentleman and Christian again,
for the time being,--admires Hanover and Berlin very much;
and looks upon Sophie Charlotte in particular as the pink of
women. Something between an earthly Queen and a divine Egeria;
"Serena" he calls her; and, in his high-flown fashion, is very
laudatory. "The most beautiful Princess of her time," says he,--
meaning one of the most beautiful: her features are extremely
regular, and full of vivacity; copious dark hair, blue eyes,
complexion excellently fair;--"not very tall, and somewhat too
plump," he admits elsewhere. And then her mind,--for gifts, for
graces, culture, where will you find such a mind? "Her reading is
infinite, and she is conversant in all manner of subjects;"
"knows the abstrusest problems of Philosophy;" says admiring
Toland: much knowledge everywhere exact, and handled as by an
artist and queen; for "her wit is inimitable," "her justness of
thought, her delicacy of expression," her felicity of utterance
and management, are great. Foreign courtiers call her "the
Republican Queen." She detects you a sophistry at one glance;
pierces down direct upon the weak point of an opinion: never
in my whole life did I, Toland, come upon a swifter or sharper
intellect. And then she is so good withal, so bright and cheerful;
and "has the art of uniting what to the rest of the world are
antagonisms, mirth and learning,"--say even, mirth and good sense.
Is deep in music, too; plays daily on her harpsichord, and
fantasies, and even composes, in an eminent manner. [ An
Account of the Courts of Prussia and Hanover, sent to a Minister
of State in Holland, by Mr. Toland (London, 1705),
p. 322. Toland's other Book, which has reference to her, is of
didactic nature ("immortality of the soul," "origin of idolatry,"
&c.), but with much fine panegyric direct and oblique:
Letters to Serena ("Serena" being Queen
), a thin 8vo, London, 1704.] Toland's admiration,
deducting the high-flown temper and manner of the man, is sincere
and great.
Beyond doubt a bright airy lady, shining in mild radiance in those
Northern parts; very graceful, very witty and ingenious; skilled
to speak, skilled to hold her tongue,--which latter art also was
frequently in requisition with her. She did not much venerate her
Husband, nor the Court population, male or female, whom he chose
to have about him: his and their ways were by no means hers,
if she had cared to publish her thoughts. Friedrich I., it is
admitted on all hands, was "an expensive Herr;" much given to
magnificent ceremonies, etiquettes and solemnities; making no
great way any-whither, and that always with noise enough, and with
a dust vortex of courtier intrigues and cabals encircling him,--
from which it is better to stand quite to windward. Moreover,
he was slightly crooked; most sensitive, thin of skin and liable
to sudden flaws of temper, though at heart very kind and good.
Sophie Charlotte is she who wrote once, "Leibnitz talked to me of
the infinitely little ( de l'infiniment petit): mon Dieu,
as if I did not know enough of that!" Besides, it is
whispered she was once near marrying to Louis XIV.'s Dauphin; her
Mother Sophie, and her Cousin the Dowager Duchess of Orleans,
cunning women both, had brought her to Paris in her girlhood,
with that secret object; and had very nearly managed it. Queen of
France that might have been; and now it is but Brandenburg, and
the dice have fallen somewhat wrong for us! She had Friedrich
Wilhelm, the rough boy; and perhaps nothing more of very precious
property. Her first child, likewise a boy, had soon died, and
there came no third: tedious ceremonials, and the infinitely
little, were mainly her lot in this world.
All which, however, she had the art to take up not in the tragic
way, but in the mildly comic,--often not to take up at all, but
leave lying there;--and thus to manage in a handsome and softly
victorious manner. With delicate female tact, with fine female
stoicism too; keeping all things within limits. She was much
respected by her Husband, much loved indeed; and greatly mourned
for by the poor man: the village Lutzelburg (Little-town), close
by Berlin, where she had built a mansion for herself, he fondly
named Charlottenburg (Charlotte's-town),
after her death, which name both House and Village still bear.
Leibnitz found her of an almost troublesome sharpness of
intellect; "wants to know the why even of the why," says Leibnitz.
That is the way of female intellects when they are good; nothing
equals their acuteness, and their rapidity is almost excessive.
Samuel Johnson, too, had a young-lady friend once "with the
acutest intellect I have ever known."
On the whole, we may pronounce her clearly a superior woman, this
Sophie Charlotte; notable not for her Grandson alone, though now
pretty much forgotten by the world,--as indeed all things and
persons have, one day or other, to be! A LIFE of her, in feeble
watery style, and distracted arrangement, by one Erman,
Memoires pour servir a l'Histoire de Sophie Charlotte,
Reine de Preusse, las dans les Seances, &c. (1 vol.
8vo, Berlin, 1801.)] a Berlin Frenchman, is in existence, and will
repay a cursory perusal; curious traits of her, in still looser
form, are also to be found in Pollnitz: [Carl
Ludwig Freiherr von Pollnitz, Memoiren zur Lebens- und
Regierungs-Geschichte der vier letzten Regenten des Preussischen
Staats (was published in French also), 2 vols. 12mo,
Berlin, 1791.] but for our purposes here is enough, and more
than enough.
Chapter V.
KING FRIEDRICH I.
The Prussian royalty is now in its twelfth year when this little
Friedrich, who is to carry it to such a height, comes into the
world. Old Friedrich the Grandfather achieved this dignity, after
long and intricate negotiations, in the first year of the Century;
16th November, 1700, his ambassador returned triumphant from
Vienna; the Kaiser had at last consented: We are to wear a crown
royal on the top of our periwig; the old Electorate of Brandenburg
is to become the Kingdom of Prussia; and the Family of
Hohenzollern, slowly mounting these many centuries, has reached
the uppermost round of the ladder.
Friedrich, the old Gentleman who now looks upon his little
Grandson (destined to be Third King of Prussia) with such
interest,--is not a very memorable man; but he has had his
adventures too, his losses and his gains: and surely among the
latter, the gain of a crown royal into his House gives him,
if only as a chronological milestone, some place in History.
He was son of him they call the Great Elector, Friedrich Wilhelm
by name; of whom the Prussians speak much, in an eagerly
celebrating manner, and whose strenuous toilsome work in this
world, celebrated or not, is still deeply legible in the actual
life and affairs of Germany. A man of whom we must yet find some
opportunity to say a word. From him and a beautiful and excellent
Princess Luise, Princess of Orange,--Dutch William, OUR Dutch
William's aunt,--this, crooked royal Friedrich came.
He was not born crooked; straight enough once, and a fine little
boy of six months old or so; there being an elder Prince now in
his third year, also full of hope. But in a rough journey to
Konigsberg and back (winter of 1657, as is guessed), one of the
many rough jolting journeys this faithful Electress made with her
Husband, a careless or unlucky nurse, who had charge of pretty
little Fritzchen, was not sufficiently attentive to her duties on
the worst of roads. The ever-jolting carriage gave some bigger
jolt, the child fell backwards in her arms; [Johann Wegfuhrer,
Leben der Kurfurstin Luise, gebornen Prinzessin von
Nassau-Oranien, Gemahlin Friedrich Wilhelm des Grossen italic> (Leipzig, 1838), p. 107.] did not quite break his back,
but injured it for life:--and with his back, one may perceive,
injured his soul and history to an almost corresponding degree.
For the weak crooked boy, with keen and fine perceptions, and an
inadequate case to put them in, grew up with too thin a skin:--
that may be considered as the summary of his misfortunes; and, on
the whole, there is no other heavy sin to be charged against him.
He had other loads laid upon him, poor youth: his kind pious
Mother died, his elder Brother died, he at the age of seventeen
saw himself Heir-Apparent;--and had got a Stepmother with new
heirs, if he should disappear. Sorrows enough in that one fact,
with the venomous whisperings, commentaries and suspicions,
which a Court population, female and male, in little Berlin Town,
can contrive to tack to it. Does not the new Sovereign Lady,
in her heart, wish YOU were dead, my Prince? Hope it perhaps?
Health, at any rate, weak; and, by the aid of a little pharmacy--
ye Heavens!
Such suspicions are now understood to have had no basis except in
the waste brains of courtier men and women; but their existence
there can become tragical enough. Add to which, the Great Elector,
like all the Hohenzollerns, was a choleric man; capable of blazing
into volcanic explosions, when affronted by idle masses of cobwebs
in the midst of his serious businesses! It is certain, the young
Prince Friedrich had at one time got into quite high, shrill and
mutually minatory terms with his Stepmother; so that once, after
some such shrill dialogue between them, ending with "You shall
repent this, Sir!"--he found it good to fly off in the night, with
only his Tutor or Secretary and a valet, to Hessen-Cassel to an
Aunt; who stoutly protected him in this emergency; and whose
Daughter, after the difficult readjustment of matters, became his
Wife, but did not live long. And it is farther certain the same
Prince, during this his first wedded time, dining one day with his
Stepmother, was taken suddenly ill. Felt ill, after his cup of
coffee; retired into another room in violent spasms, evidently in
an alarming state, and secretly in a most alarmed one: his Tutor
or Secretary, one Dankelmann, attended him thither; and as the
Doctor took some time to arrive, and the symptoms were instant and
urgent, Secretary Dankelmann produced "from a pocket-book some
drug of his own, or of the Hessen-Cassel Aunt," emetic I suppose,
and gave it to the poor Prince;--who said often, and felt ever
after, with or without notion of poison, That Dankelmann had saved
his life. In consequence of which adventure he again quitted Court
without leave; and begged to be permitted to remain safe in the
country, if Papa would be so good. [Pollnitz, Memoiren,
i. 191-198.]
Fancy the Great Elector's humor on such an occurrence; and what a
furtherance to him in his heavy continual labors, and strenuous
swimming for life, these beautiful humors and transactions must
have been! A crook-backed boy, dear to the Great Elector, pukes,
one afternoon; and there arises such an opening of the Nether
Floodgates of this Universe; in and round your poor workshop,
nothing but sudden darkness, smell of sulphur; hissing of forked
serpents here, and the universal alleleu of female hysterics
there;--to help a man forward with his work! O reader, we will
pity the crowned head, as well as the hatted and even hatless one.
Human creatures will not GO quite accurately together, any more
than clocks will; and when their dissonance once rises fairly
high, and they cannot readily kill one another, any Great Elector
who is third party will have a terrible time of it.
Electress Dorothee, the Stepmother, was herself somewhat of a hard
lady; not easy to live with, though so far above poisoning as to
have "despised even the suspicion of it." She was much given to
practical economics, dairy-farming, market-gardening, and
industrial and commercial operations such as offered; and was
thought to be a very strict reckoner of money. She founded the
Dorotheenstadt, now oftener called the
Neustadt, chief quarter of Berlin; and
planted, just about the time of this unlucky dinner, "A.D. 1680
or so," [Nicolai, Beschreibung der koniglichen
Residenzstadte Berlin und Potsdam (Berlin, 1786),
i. 172.] the first of the celebrated Lindens, which (or the
successors of which, in a stunted ambition) are still growing
there. Unter-den-Linden: it is now the
gayest quarter of Berlin, full of really fine edifices: it was
then a sandy outskirt of Electress Dorothee's dairy-farm; good for
nothing but building upon, thought Electress Dorothee. She did
much dairy-and-vegetable trade on the great scale;--was thought
even to have, underhand, a commercial interest in the principal
Beer-house of the city? [Horn, Leben Friedrich Wilhelms
des Grossen Kurfursten von Brandenburg (Berlin,
1814).] People did not love her: to the Great Elector, who guided
with a steady bridle-hand, she complied not amiss; though in him
too there rose sad recollections and comparisons now and then: but
with a Stepson of unsteady nerves it became evident to him there
could never be soft neighborhood. Prince Friedrich and his Father
came gradually to some understanding, tacit or express, on that
sad matter; Prince Friedrich was allowed to live, on his separate
allowance, mainly remote from Court. Which he did, for perhaps six
or eight years, till the Great Elector's death; henceforth in a
peaceful manner, or at least without open explosions.
His young Hessen-Cassel Wife died suddenly in 1683; and again
there was mad rumor of poisoning; which Electress Dorothee
disregarded as below her, and of no consequence to her, and
attended to industrial operations that would pay. That poor young
Wife, when dying, exacted a promise from Prince Friedrich that he
would not wed again, but be content with the Daughter she had left
him: which promise, if ever seriously given, could not be kept,
as we have seen. Prince Friedrich brought his Sophie Charlotte
home about fifteen months after. With the Stepmother and with the
Court there was armed neutrality under tolerable forms, and no
open explosion farther.
In a secret way, however, there continued to be difficulties.
And such difficulties had already been, that the poor young man,
not yet come to his Heritages, and having, with probably some turn
for expense, a covetous unamiable Stepmother, had fallen into the
usual difficulties; and taken the methods too usual. Namely, had
given ear to the Austrian Court, which offered him assistance,--
somewhat as an aged Jew will to a young Christian gentleman in
quarrel with papa,--upon condition of his signing a certain bond:
bond which much surprised Prince Friedrich when he came to
understand it! Of which we shall hear more, and even much more,
in the course of time!--
Neither after his accession (year 1688; his Cousin Dutch William,
of the glorious and immortal memory, just lifting anchor towards
these shores) was the new Elector's life an easy one. We may say,
it was replete with troubles rather; and unhappily not so much
with great troubles, which could call forth antagonistic greatness
of mind or of result, as with never-ending shoals of small
troubles, the antagonism to which is apt to become itself of
smallish character. Do not search into his history; you will
remember almost nothing of it (I hope) after never so many
readings! Garrulous Pollnitz and others have written enough about
him; but it all runs off from you again, as a thing that has no
affinity with the human skin. He had a court "rempli
d'intrigues, full of never-ending cabals," [Forster,
i. 74 (quoting Memoires du Comte de Dohna);
&c. &c.]--about what?
One question only are we a little interested in: How he came by
the Kingship? How did the like of him contrive to achieve
Kingship? We may answer: It was not he that achieved it; it was
those that went before him, who had gradually got it,--as is very
usual in such cases. All that he did was to knock at the gate (the
Kaiser's gate and the world's), and ask, "IS it achieved, then?"
Is Brandenburg grown ripe for having a crown? Will it be needful
for you to grant Brandenburg a crown? Which question, after
knocking as loud as possible, they at last took the trouble to
answer, "Yes, it will be needful."--
Elector Friedrich's turn for ostentation--or as we may interpret
it, the high spirit of a Hohenzollern working through weak nerves
and a crooked back--had early set him a-thinking of the Kingship;
and no doubt, the exaltation of rival Saxony, which had attained
that envied dignity (in a very unenviable manner, in the person of
Elector August made King of Poland) in 1697, operated as a new
spur on his activities. Then also Duke Ernst of Hanover, his
father-in-law, was struggling to become Elector Ernst; Hanover to
be the Ninth Electorate, which it actually attained in 1698;
not to speak of England, and quite endless prospects there for
Ernst and Hanover. These my lucky neighbors are all rising;
all this the Kaiser has granted to my lucky neighbors: why is
there no promotion he should grant me, among them!--
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