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History of Friedrich II of Prussia V 4
T >> Thomas Carlyle >> History of Friedrich II of Prussia V 4 Pages: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 Prepared by D.R. Thompson
Carlyle's "History of Friedrich II of Prussia"
BOOK IV.
FRIEDRICH'S APPRENTICESHIP, FIRST STAGE.
1713-1728.
CHAPTER I.
CHILDHOOD: DOUBLE EDUCATIONAL ELEMENT.
Of Friedrich's childhood, there is not, after all our reading,
much that it would interest the English public to hear tell of.
Perhaps not much of knowable that deserves anywhere to be known.
Books on it, expressly handling it, and Books on Friedrich
Wilhelm's Court and History, of which it is always a main element,
are not wanting: but they are mainly of the sad sort which, with
pain and difficulty, teach us nothing, Books done by pedants and
tenebrific persons, under the name of men; dwelling not on things,
but, at endless length, on the outer husks of things: of
unparalleled confusion, too;--not so much as an Index granted you;
to the poor half-peck of cinders, hidden in these wagon-loads of
ashes, no sieve allowed! Books tending really to fill the mind
with mere dust-whirlwinds,--if the mind did not straightway blow
them out again; which it does. Of these let us say nothing.
Seldom had so curious a Phenomenon worse treatment from the
Dryasdust, species.
Among these Books, touching on Friedrich's childhood, and treating
of his Father's Court, there is hardly above one that we can
characterize as fairly human: the Book written by his little
Sister Wilhelmina, when she grew to size and knowledge of good and
evil; [ Memoires de Frederique Sophie Wilhelmine de
Prusse, Margrave de Bareith (Brunswick, Paris et
Londres, l8l2), 2 vols. 8vo.]--and this, of what flighty uncertain
nature it is, the world partly knows. A human Book, however, not a
pedant one: there is a most shrill female soul busy with intense
earnestness here; looking, and teaching us to look. We find it a
VERACIOUS Book, done with heart, and from eyesight and insight;
of a veracity deeper than the superficial sort. It is full of
mistakes, indeed; and exaggerates dreadfully, in its shrill female
way; but is above intending to deceive: deduct the due subtrahend,
--say perhaps twenty-five per cent, or in extreme cases as high as
seventy-five,--you will get some human image of credible
actualities from Wilhelmina. Practically she is our one resource
on this matter. Of the strange King Friedrich Wilhelm and his
strange Court, with such an Heir-Apparent growing up in it, there
is no real light to be had, except what Wilhelmina gives,--or
kindles dark Books of others into giving. For that, too, on long
study, is the result of her, here and there. With so flickery a
wax-taper held over Friedrich's childhood,--and the other dirty
tallow-dips all going out in intolerable odor,--judge if our
success can be very triumphant!
We perceive the little creature has got much from Nature; not the
big arena only, but fine inward gifts, for he is well-born in more
senses than one;--and that in the breeding of him there are two
elements noticeable, widely diverse: the French and the German.
This is perhaps the chief peculiarity; best worth laying hold of,
with the due comprehension, if our means allow.
FIRST EDUCATIONAL ELEMENT, THE FRENCH ONE.
His nurses, governesses, simultaneous and successive, mostly of
French breed, are duly set down in the Prussian Books, and held in
mind as a point of duty by Prussian men; but, in foreign parts,
cannot be considered otherwise than as a group, and merely with
generic features. He had a Frau von Kamecke for Head Governess,--
the lady whom Wilhelmina, in her famed Memoires, italic> always writes KAMKEN; and of whom, except the floating
gossip found in that Book, there is nothing to be remembered.
Under her, as practical superintendent, SOUS-GOUVERNANTE and
quasi-mother, was the Dame de Roucoulles, a more important person
for us here. Dame de Roucoulles, once de Montbail, the same
respectable Edict-of-Nantes French lady who, five-and-twenty years
ago, had taken similar charge of Friedrich Wilhelm; a fact that
speaks well for the character of her performance in that office.
She had done her first edition of a Prussian Prince in a
satisfactory manner; and not without difficult accidents and
singularities, as we have heard: the like of which were spared her
in this her second edition (so we may call it); a second and, in
all manner of ways, an improved one. The young Fritz swallowed no
shoe-buckles; did not leap out of window, hanging on by the hands;
nor achieve anything of turbulent, or otherwise memorable, in his
infantine history; the course of which was in general smooth, and
runs, happily for it, below the ken of rumor. The Boy, it is said,
and is easily credible, was of extraordinary vivacity; quick in
apprehending all things, and gracefully relating himself to them.
One of the prettiest, vividest little boys; with eyes, with mind
and ways, of uncommon brilliancy;--only he takes less to
soldiering than the paternal heart could wish; and appears to find
other things in the world fully as notable as loud drums, and
stiff men drawn up in rows. Moreover, he is apt to be a little
unhealthy now and then, and requires care from his nurses, over
whom the judicious Roucoulles has to be very vigilant.
Of this respectable Madame de Roucoulles I have read, at least
seven times, what the Prussian Books say of her by way of
Biography; but it is always given in their dull tombstone style;
it has moreover next to no importance; and I,--alas, I do not yet
too well remember it! She was from Normandy; of gentle blood,
never very rich; Protestant, in the Edict-of-Nantes time; and had
to fly her country, a young widow, with daughter and mother-in-law
hanging on her; the whole of them almost penniless. However, she
was kindly received at the Court of Berlin, as usual in that sad
case; and got some practical help towards living in her new
country. Queen Sophie Charlotte had liked her society; and finding
her of prudent intelligent turn, and with the style of manners
suitable, had given her Friedrich Wilhelm to take charge of.
She was at that time Madame de Montbail; widow, as we said:
she afterwards wedded Roucoulles, a refugee gentleman of her own
Nation, who had gone into the Prussian Army, as was common for the
like of him: She had again become a widow, Madame de Roucoulles
this time, with her daughter Montbail still about her, when, by
the grateful good sense of Friedrich Wilhelm, she was again
intrusted as we see;--and so had the honor of governessing
Frederick the Great for the first seven years of his life.
Respectable lady, she oversaw his nurses, pap-boats,--"beer-soup
and bread," he himself tells us once, was his main diet in
boyhood,--beer-soups, dress-frocks, first attempts at walking;
and then also his little bits of intellectualities, moralities;
his incipiencies of speech, demeanor, and spiritual development;
and did her function very honestly, there is no doubt.
Wilhelmina mentions her, at a subsequent period; and we have a
glimpse of this same Roucoulles, gliding about among the royal
young-folk, "with only one tooth left" (figuratively speaking),
and somewhat given to tattle, in Princess Wilhelmina's opinion.
Grown very old now, poor lady; and the dreadfulest bore, when she
gets upon Hanover and her experiences, and Queen Sophie
Charlotte's, in that stupendously magnificent court under
Gentleman Ernst. Shun that topic, if you love your peace of mind!
[ Memoires (above cited).]--She did certainly
superintend the Boy Fritzkin for his first seven years; that is a
glory that cannot be taken from her. And her pupil, too, we
agreeably perceive, was always grateful for her services in that
capacity. Once a week, if he were in Berlin, during his youthful
time, he was sure to appear at the Roucoulles Soiree, and say and
look various pleasant things to his "CHER MAMAN (dear Mamma)," as
he used to call her, and to the respectable small parts she had.
Not to speak of other more substantial services, which also were not wanting.
Roucoulles and the other female souls, mainly French, among whom
the incipient Fritz now was, appear to have done their part as
well as could be looked for. Respectable Edict-of-Nantes French
ladies, with high head-gear, wide hoops; a clear, correct, but
somewhat barren and meagre species, tight-laced and high-frizzled
in mind and body. It is not a very fertile element for a young
soul: not very much of silent piety in it; and perhaps of vocal
piety more than enough in proportion. An element founding on what
they call "enlightened Protestantism," "freedom of thought," and
the like, which is apt to become loquacious, and too conscious of
itself; terming, on the whole, rather to contempt of the false,
than to deep or very effective recognition of the true.
But it is, in some important senses, a clear and pure element
withal. At lowest, there are no conscious semi-falsities, or
volunteer hypocrisies, taught the poor Boy; honor, clearness,
truth of word at least; a decorous dignified bearing;
various thin good things, are honestly inculcated and exemplified;
nor is any bad, ungraceful or suspicious thing permitted there,
if recognized for such. It might have been a worse element;
and we must be thankful for it. Friedrich, through life, carries
deep traces of this French-Protestant incipiency: a very big
wide-branching royal tree, in the end; but as small and flexible a
seedling once as any one of us.
The good old Dame de Roucoulles just lived to witness his
accession; on which grand juncture and afterwards, as he had done
before, he continued to express, in graceful and useful ways, his
gratitude and honest affection to her and hers. Tea services,
presents in cut-glass and other kinds, with Letters that were
still more precious to the old Lady, had come always at due
intervals:, and one of his earliest kingly gifts was that of some
suitable small pension for Montbail, the elderly daughter of this
poor old Roucoulles, [Preuss, Friedrich der Grosse, eine
Lebensgeschichte (5 vols. Berlin, 1832-1834),
v. (Urkundenbuch, p. 4). OEuvres de Frederic
(same Preuss's Edition, Berlin, 1846-1850, &c.), xvi. 184, 191.--
The Herr Doctor J. D. E. Preuss, "Historiographer of Brandenburg,"
devoted wholly to the study of Friedrich for five-and-twenty years
past, and for above a dozen years busily engaged in editing the
OEuvres de Frederic, --has, besides that
Lebensgeschichte just cited, three or four
smaller Books, of indistinctly different titles, on the same
subject. A meritoriously exact man; acquainted with the outer
details of Friedrich's Biography (had he any way of arranging,
organizing or setting them forth) as few men ever were or will be.
We shall mean always this Lebensgeschichte
here, when no other title is given: and OEuvres de
Frederic shall signify HIS Edition, unless the
contrary be stated.] who was just singing her DIMITTAES as it
were, still in a blithe and pious manner. For she saw now (in
1740) her little nursling grown to be a brilliant man and King;
King gone out to the Wars, too, with all Europe inquiring and
wondering what the issue would be. As for her, she closed her poor
old eyes, at this stage of the business; piously, in foreign
parts, far from her native Normandy; and did not see farther what
the issue was. Good old Dame, I have, as was observed, read some
seven times over what they call biographical accounts of her;
but have seven times (by Heaven's favor, I do partly believe)
mostly forgotten them again; and would not, without cause, inflict
on any reader the like sorrow. To remember one worthy thing, how
many thousand unworthy things must a man be able to forget!
From this Edict-of-Mantes enviroument, which taught our young
Fritz his first lessons of human behavior,--a polite sharp little
Boy, we do hope and understand,--he learned also to clothe his
bits of notions, emotions, and garrulous utterabilities, in the
French dialect. Learned to speak, and likewise, what is more
important; to THINK, in French; which was otherwise quite
domesticated in the Palace, and became his second mother-tongue.
Not a bad dialect; yet also none of the best. Very lean and
shallow, if very clear and convenient; leaving much in poor Fritz
unuttered, unthought, unpractised, which might otherwise have come
into activity in the course of his life. He learned to read very
soon, I presume; but he did not, now or afterwards, ever learn to
spell. He spells indeed dreadfully ILL, at his first appearance
on the writing stage, as we shall see by and by; and he continued,
to the last, one of the bad spellers of his day. A circumstance
which I never can fully account for, and will leave to the
reader's study.
From all manner of sources,--from inferior valetaille, Prussian
Officials, Royal Majesty itself when not in gala,--he learned, not
less rootedly, the corrupt Prussian dialect of German; and used
the same, all his days, among his soldiers, native officials,
common subjects and wherever it was most convenient; speaking it,
and writing and misspelling it, with great freedom, though always
with a certain aversion and undisguised contempt, which has since
brought him blame in some quarters. It is true, the Prussian form
of German is but rude; and probably Friedrich, except sometimes in
Luther's Bible, never read any German Book. What, if we will think
of it, could he know of his first mother-tongue! German, to this
day, is a frightful dialect for the stupid, the pedant and dullard
sort! Only in the hands of the gifted does it become supremely
good. It had not yet been the language of any Goethe, any Lessing;
though it stood on the eve of becoming such. It had already been
the language of Luther, of Ulrich Hutten, Friedrich Barbarossa,
Charlemagne and others. And several extremely important things had
been said in it, and some pleasant ones even sung in it, from an
old date, in a very appropriate manner,--had Crown-Prince
Friedrich known all that. But he could not reasonably be expected
to know:--and the wiser Germans now forgive him for not knowing,
and are even thankful that he did not.
Chapter II.
THE GERMAN ELEMENT.
So that, as we said, there are two elements for young Fritz, and
highly diverse ones, from both of which he is to draw nourishment,
and assimilate what he can. Besides that Edict-of-Nantes French
element, and in continual contact and contrast with it, which
prevails chiefly in the Female Quarters of the Palace,--there is
the native German element for young Fritz, of which the centre is
Papa, now come to be King, and powerfully manifesting himself as
such. An abrupt peremptory young King; and German to the bone.
Along with whom, companions to him in his social hours, and
fellow-workers in his business, are a set of very rugged German
sons of Nature; differing much from the French sons of Art.
Baron Grumkow, Leopold Prince of Anhalt-Dessau (not yet called the
"OLD Dessauer," being under forty yet), General Glasenap, Colonel
Derschau, General Flans; these, and the other nameless Generals
and Officials, are a curious counterpart to the Camases, the
Hautcharmoys and Forcades, with their nimble tongues and rapiers;
still more to the Beausobres, Achards, full of ecclesiastical
logic, made of Bayle and Calvin kneaded together; and to the
high-frizzled ladies rustling in stiff silk, with the shadow of
Versailles and of the Dragonnades alike present to them.
Born Hyperboreans these others; rough as hemp, and stout of fibre
as hemp; native products of the rigorous North. Of whom, after all
our reading, we know little.--O Heaven, they have had long lines
of rugged ancestors, cast in the same rude stalwart mould, and
leading their rough life there, of whom we know absolutely
nothing! Dumb all those preceding busy generations; and this of
Friedrich Wilhelm is grown almost dumb. Grim semi-articulate
Prussian men; gone all to pipe-clay and mustache for us.
Strange blond-complexioned, not unbeautiful Prussian honorable
women, in hoops, brocades, and unintelligible head-gear and
hair-towers,--ACH GOTT, they too are gone; and their musical talk,
in the French or German language, that also is gone; and the
hollow Eternities have swallowed it, as their wont is, in a very
surprising manner!--
Grumkow, a cunning, greedy-hearted, long-headed fellow, of the old
Pomeranian Nobility by birth, has a kind of superficial polish put
upon his Hyperboreanisms; he has been in foreign countries, doing
legations, diplomacies, for which, at least for the vulpine parts
of which, he has a turn. He writes and speaks articulate
grammatical French; but neither in that, nor in native Pommerish
Platt-Deutsch, does he show us much, except the depths of his own
greed, of his own astucities and stealthy audacities. Of which we
shall hear more than enough by and by.
OF THE DESSAUER, NOT YET "OLD."
As to the Prince of Anhalt-Dessau, rugged man, whose very face is
the color of gunpowder, he also knows French, and can even write
in it, if he like,--having duly had a Tutor of that nation, and
strange adventures with him on the grand tour and elsewhere;--but
does not much practise writing, when it can be helped.
His children, I have heard, he expressly did not teach to read or
write, seeing no benefit in that effeminate art, but left them to
pick it up as they could. His Princess, all rightly ennobled now,
--whom he would not but marry, though sent on the grand tour to
avoid it,--was the daughter of one Fos an Apothecary at Dessau;
and is still a beautiful and prudent kind of woman, who seems to
suit him well enough, no worse than if she had been born a
Princess. Much talk has been of her, in princely and other
circles; nor is his marriage the only strange thing Leopold has
done. He is a man to keep the world's tongue wagging, not too
musically always; though himself of very unvocal nature.
Perhaps the biggest mass of inarticulate human vitality, certainly
one of the biggest, then going about in the world. A man of vast
dumb faculty; dumb, but fertile, deep; no end of ingenuities in
the rough head of him:--as much mother-wit, there, I often guess,
as could be found in whole talking parliaments, spouting
themselves away in vocables and eloquent wind!
A man of dreadful impetuosity withal. Set upon his will as the one
law of Nature; storming forward with incontrollable violence:
a very whirlwind of a man. He was left a minor; his Mother
guardian. Nothing could prevent him from marrying this Fos the
Apothecary's Daughter; no tears nor contrivances of his Mother,
whom he much loved, and who took skilful measures. Fourteen months
of travel in Italy; grand tour, with eligible French Tutor,--whom
he once drew sword upon, getting some rebuke from him one night in
Venice, and would have killed, had not the man been nimble, at
once dexterous and sublime:--it availed not. The first thing he
did, on re-entering Dessau, with his Tutor, was to call at
Apothecary Fos's, and see the charming Mamsell; to go and see his
Mother, wss the second thing. Mot even his grand passion for war
could eradicate Fos: he went to Dutoh William's wars; the wise
mother still counselling, who was own aunt to Dutoh William, and
liked the scheme. He besieged Namur; fought and besieged up and
down,--with insatiable appetite for fighting and sieging;
with great honor, too, and ambitions awakening in him;--campaign
after campaign: but along with the flamy-thundery ideal bride,
figuratively called Bellona, there was always a soft real one,
Mamsell Fos of Dessau, to whom he continued constant.
The Government of his Dominions he left cheerfully to his Mother,
even when he came of age: "I am for learning War, as the one right
trade; do with all things as you please, Mamma,--only not with
Mamsell, not with her!"--
Readers may figure this scene too, and shudder over it.
Some rather handsome male Cousin of Mamsell, Medical Graduate or
whatever he was, had appeared in Dessau:--"Seems, to admire
Mamsell much; of course, in a Platonic way," said rumor:--
"He? Admire?" thinks Leopold;--thinks a good deal of it, not in
the philosophic mood. As he was one day passing Fos's, Mamsell and
the Medical Graduate are visible, standing together at the window
inside. Pleasantly looking out upon Nature,--of course quite
casually, say some Histories with a sneer. In fact, it seems
possible this Medical Graduate may have been set to act shoeing-
horn; but he had better not. Leopold storms into the House,
"Draw, scandalous canaille, and defend yourself!"--And in this, or
some such way, a confident tradition says, he killed the poor
Medical Graduate there and then. One tries always to hope not:
but Varnhagen is positive, though the other Histories say nothing
of it. God knows. The man was a Prince; no Reichshofrath,
Speyer-Wetzlar KAMMER, or other Supreme Court, would much trouble
itself, except with formal shakings of the wig, about such a
peccadillo. In fine, it was better for Leopold to marry the Miss
Fos; which he actually did (1698, in his twenty-second year),
"with the left-hand,"--and then with the right and both hands;
having got her properly ennobled before long, by his splendid
military services. She made, as we have hinted, an excellent Wife
to him, for the fifty or sixty ensuing years.
This is a strange rugged specimen, this inarticulate Leopold;
already getting mythic, as we can perceive, to the polished vocal
ages; which mix all manner of fables with the considerable history
he has. Readers will see him turn up again in notable forms. A man
hitherto unknown except in his own country; and yet of very
considerable significance to all European countries whatsoever;
the fruit of his activities, without his name attached, being now
manifest in all of them. He invented the iron ramrod; he invented
the equal step; in fact, he is the inventor of modern military
tactics. Even so, if we knew it: the Soldiery of every civilized
country still receives from this man, on parade-fields and
battle-fields, its word of command; out of his rough head
proceeded the essential of all that the innumerable
Drill-sergeants, in various languages, daily repeat and enforce.
Such a man is worth some transient glance from his
fellow-creatures,--especially with a little Fritz trotting at his
foot, and drawing inferences from him.
Dessau, we should have said for the English reader's behoof, was
and still is a little independent Principality; about the size of
Huntingdonshire, but with woods instead of bogs;--revenue of it,
at this day, is 60,000 pounds, was perhaps not 20, or even 10,000
in Leopold's first time. It lies some fourscore miles southwest of
Berlin, attainable by post-horses in a day. Leopold, as his Father
had done, stood by Prussia as if wholly native to it. Leopold's
Mother was Sister of that fine Louisa, the Great Elector's first
Wife; his Sister is wedded to the Margraf of Schwedt, Friedrich
Wilhelm's half-uncle. Lying in such neighborhood, and being in
such affinity to the Prussian House, the Dessauers may be said to
have, in late times, their headquarters at Berlin. Leopold and
Leopold's sons, as his father before him had done, without
neglecting their Dessau and Principality, hold by the Prussian
Army as their main employment. Not neglecting Dessau either;
but going thither in winter, or on call otherwise; Leopold
least of all neglecting it, who neglects nothing that can be
useful to him.
He is General Field-Marshal of the Prussian Armies, the foremost
man in war-matters with this new King; and well worthy to be so.
He is inventing, or brooding in the way to invent, a variety of
things,--"iron ramrods," for one; a very great improvement on the
fragile ineffective wooden implement, say all the Books, but give
no date to it; that is the first thing; and there will be others,
likewise undated, but posterior, requiring mention by and by.
Inventing many things;--and always well practising what is already
invented, and known for certain. In a word, he is drilling to
perfection, with assiduous rigor, the Prussian Infantry to be the
wonder of the world. He has fought with them, too, in a conclusive
manner; and is at all times ready for fighting.
He was in Malplaquet with them, if only as volunteer on that
occasion. He commanded them in Blenheim itself; stood, in the
right or Eugene wing of that famed Battle of Blenheim, fiercely at
bay, when the Austrian Cavalry had all fled;--fiercely volleying,
charging, dexterously wheeling and manoeuvring; sticking to his
ground with a mastiff-like tenacity,--till Marlborough, and
victory from the left, relieved him and others. He was at the
Bridge of Cassano; where Eugene and Vendome came to hand-grips;--
where Mirabeau's Grandfather, COL-D'ARGENT, got his six-and-thirty
wounds, and was "killed" as he used to term it. [Carlyle's
Miscellanies, v. ? Mirabeau.] "The hottest
fire I ever saw," said Eugene, who had not seen Malplaquet at that
time. While Col-d'Argent sank collapsed upon the Bridge, and the
horse charged over him, and again charged, and beat and were
beaten three several times,--Anhalt-Dessau, impatient of such
fiddling hither and thither, swashed into the stream itself with
his Prussian Foot: swashed through it, waist-deep or breast-deep;
and might have settled the matter, had not his cartridges got
wetted. Old King Friedrich rebuked him angrily for his impetuosity
in this matter, and the sad loss of men.
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