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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
Clement, the Hungarian forger, vender of false state-secrets, is
well hanged; went to the gallows (18th April, 1720) with much
circumstance, just two days before that Heidelberg Church was got
reopened. But the suspicions sown by Clement cannot quite be
abolished by the hanging of him: Forger indisputably; but who
knows whether he had not something of fact for his? What with
Clement, what with this Heidelberg business, the Court of Berlin
has fallen wrong with Dresden, with Vienna itself, and important
clouds have risen.
There is an absurd Flame of War, blown out by Admiral
Byng; and a new Man of Genius announces himself to the dim
Populations.
The poor Kaiser himself is otherwise in trouble of his own, at
this time. The Spaniards and he have fallen out, in spite of
Utrecht Treaty and Rastadt ditto; the Spaniards have taken Sicily
from him; and precisely in those days while Karl Philip took to
shutting up the HEILIGE-GEIST Church at Heidelberg, there was,
loud enough in all the Newspapers, silent as it now is, a "Siege
of Messina" going on; Imperial and Piedmontese troops doing duty
by land, Admiral Byng still more effectively by sea, for the
purpose of getting Sicily back. Which was achieved by and by,
though at an extremely languid pace. [Byng's Sea-fight, 10th
August, 1718 (Campbell's Lives of the Admirals, italic> iii. 468); whereupon the Spaniards, who had hardly yet
completed their capture of Messina, are besieged in it;--
29th October, 1719, Messina retaken (this is the "Siege of
Messina"): February, 1720, Peace is clapt up (the chief article,
that Alberoni shall be packed away), and a "Congress of Cambrai"
is to meet, and settle everything.] One of the most tedious
Sieges; one of the paltriest languid Wars (of extreme virulence
and extreme feebleness, neither party having any cash left), and
for an object which could not be excelled in insignificance.
Object highly interesting to Kaiser Karl VI. and Elizabeth Farnese
Termagant Queen of Spain. These two were red, or even were pale,
with interest in it; and to the rest of Adam's Posterity it was
not intrinsically worth an ounce of gunpowder, many tons of that
and of better commodities as they had to spend upon it. True, the
Spanish Navy got well lamed in the business; Spanish Fleet blown
mostly to destruction,--"Roads of Messina, 10th August, 1718," by
the dexterous Byng (a creditable handy figure both in Peace and
War) and his considerable Sea-fight there:--if that was an object
to Spain or mankind, that was accomplished. But the "War," except
that many men were killed in it, and much vain babble was uttered
upon it, ranks otherwise with that of Don Quixote, for conquest of
the enchanted Helmet of Mambrino, which when looked into proved to
be a Barber's Basin.
Congress of Cambrai, and other high Gatherings and convulsive
Doings, which all proved futile, and look almost like Lapland
witchcraft now to us, will have to follow this futility of a War.
It is the first of a long series of enchanted adventures, on which
Kaiser Karl,--duelling with that Spanish Virago, Satan's Invisible
World in the rear of her,--has now embarked, to the woe of
mankind, for the rest of his life. The first of those
terrifico-ludicrous paroxysms of crisis into which he throws the
European Universe; he with his Enchanted Barber's-Basin
enterprises;--as perhaps was fit enough, in an epoch presided over
by the Nightmares. Congress of Cambrai is to follow; and much else
equally spectral. About all which there will be enough to say
anon! For it was a fearful operation, though a ludicrous one, this
of the poor Kaiser; and it tormented not the big Nations only, and
threw an absurd Europe into paroxysm after paroxysm; but it
whirled up, in its wide-weeping skirts, our little Fritz and his
Sister, and almost dashed the lives out of them, as we shall see!
Which last is perhaps the one claim it now has to a cursory
mention from mankind.
Byng's Sea-fight, done with due dexterity of manoeuvring, and then
with due emphasis of broadsiding, decisive of that absurd War, and
almost the one creditable action in it, dates itself 10th August,
1718. And about three months later, on the mimic stage at Paris
there came out a piece, OEDIPE the title of it, [18th November,
1718.] by one Francois Arouet, a young gentleman about twenty-two;
and had such a run as seldom was;--apprising the French
Populations that, to all appearance, a new man of genius had
appeared among them (not intimating what work he would do);
and greatly angering old M. Arouet of the Chamber of Accouuts;
who thereby found his Son as good as cast into the whirlpools, and
a solid Law-career thenceforth impossible for the young fool.--
The name of that "M. Arouet junior" changes itself, some years
hence, into M. DE VOLTAIRE; under which latter designation he will
conspicuously reappear in this Narrative.
And now we will go to our little Crown-Prince again;--ignorant,
he, of all this that is mounting up in the distance, and that it
will envelop him one day.
Chapter XI.
ON THE CROWN-PRINCE'S PROGRESS IN HIS SCHOOLING.
Wilhelmina says, [ Memoires, i. 22.] her
Brother was "slow" in learning: we may presume, she means idle,
volatile, not always prompt in fixing his attention to what did
not interest him. Moreover, he was often weakly in health, as she
herself adds; so that exertion was not recommendable for him.
Herr von Loen (a witty Prussian Official, and famed man-of-letters
once, though forgotten now) testifies expressly that the Boy was
of bright parts, and that he made rapid progress. "The
Crown-Prince manifests in this tender age [his seventh year] an
uncommon capacity; nay we may say, something quite extraordinary
( etwas ganz Ausserordentliches ). He is a
most alert and vivacious Prince; he has fine and sprightly
manners; and shows a certain kindly sociality, and so affectionate
a disposition that all things may be hoped of him. The French Lady
who [under Roucoulles] has had charge of his learning hitherto,
cannot speak of him without enthusiasm. 'C'est un esprit
ange'lique (a little angel),' she is wont to say.
He takes up, and learns, whatever is put before him, with the
greatest facility." [Van Loen, Kleine Schriften, italic> ii. 27 (as cited in Rodenbeck, No. iv. 479).]
For the rest, that Friedrich Wilhelm's intentions and
Rhadamanthine regulations, in regard to him, were fulfilled in
every point, we will by no means affirm. Rules of such exceeding
preciseness, if grounded here and there only on the SIC-VOLO,
how could they be always kept, except on the surface and to the
eye merely? The good Duhan, diligent to open his pupil's mind, and
give Nature fair-play, had practically found it inexpedient to tie
him too rigorously to the arbitrary formal departments where no
natural curiosity, but only order from without, urges the
ingenious pupil. What maximum strictness in school-drill there can
have been, we may infer from one thing, were there no other:
the ingenious Pupil's mode of SPELLING. Fritz learned to write a
fine, free-flowing, rapid and legible business-hand; "Arithmetic"
too, "Geography," and many other Useful Knowledges that had some
geniality of character, or attractiveness in practice, were among
his acquisitions; much, very much he learned in the course of his
life; but to SPELL, much more to punctuate, and subdue the higher
mysteries of Grammar to himself, was always an unachievable
perfection. He did improve somewhat in after life; but here is the
length to which he had carried that necessary art in the course of
nine years' exertion, under Duhan and the subsidiary preceptors;
it is in the following words and alphabetic letters that he
gratefully bids Duhan farewell,--who surely cannot have been a
very strict drill-sergeant in the arbitrary branches of schooling!
"Mon cher Duhan Je Vous promais (PROMETS) que quand j'aurez
(J'AURAI) mon propre argent en main, je Vous donnerez (DONNERAI)
enuelement (ANNUELLEMENT) 2400 ecu (ECUS) par an, et je vous
aimerais (AIMERAI) toujour encor (TOUJORS ENCORE) un peu plus
q'asteure (QU'A CETTE HEURE) s'il me l'est (M'EST) posible
(POSSIBLE)."
"MY DEAR DUHAN,--I promise to you, that when I shall have my money
in my own hands, I will give you annually 2400 crowns [say 350
pounds] EVERY YEAR; and that I will love you always even a little
more than at present, if that be possible.
"FRIDERIC P.R. [Prince-Royal]."
"POTSDAM, le 20 de juin, 1727." [Preuss, i. 22.]
The Document has otherwise its beauty; but such is the spelling of
it. In fact his Grammar, as he would himself now and then
regretfully discern, in riper years, with some transient attempt
or resolution to remedy or help it, seems to have come mainly by
nature; so likewise his "STYLUS" both in French and German,--
a very fair style, too, in the former dialect:--but as to his
spelling, let him try as he liked, he never came within sight
of perfection.
The things ordered with such rigorous minuteness, if but arbitrary
things, were apt to be neglected; the things forbidden, especially
in the like case, were apt to become doubly tempting. It appears,
the prohibition of Latin gave rise to various attempts, on the
part of Friedrich, to attain that desirable Language.
Secret lessons, not from Duhan, but no doubt with Duhan's
connivance, were from time to time undertaken with this view:
once, it is recorded, the vigilant Friedrich Wilhelm, going his
rounds, came upon Fritz and one of his Preceptors (not Duhan but a
subaltern) actually engaged in this illicit employment.
Friedrich himself was wont to relate this anecdote in after 1ife.
[Busching, Beitrage zu der Lebensgeschichte denkwurdiger
Personen, v. 33. Preuss, i. 24.] They had Latin
books, dictionaries, grammars on the table, all the contraband
apparatus; busy with it there, like a pair of coiners taken in the
fact. Among other Books was a copy of the Golden Bull of Kaiser
Karl IV.,-- Aurea Bulla, from the little
golden BULLETS or pellets hung to it,--by which sublime Document,
as perhaps we hinted long ago, certain so-called Fundamental
Constitutions, or at least formalities and solemn practices,
method of election, rule of precedence, and the like, of the Holy
Roman Empire, had at last been settled on a sure footing, by that
busy little Kaiser, some three hundred and fifty years before;
a Document venerable almost next to the Bible in Friedrich
Wilhelm's loyal eyes, "What is this; what are you venturing upon
here?" exclaims Paternal Vigilance, in an astonished dangerous
tone. "Ihro Majestat, ich explicire dem Prinzen Auream
Bullam," exclaimed the trembling pedagogue: "Your
Majesty, I am explaining AUREA BULLA [Golden Bull] to the
Prince!"--"Dog, I will Golden-Bull you!" said his Majesty,
flourishing his rattan, "Ich will dich, Schurke,
be-auream-bullam!" which sent the terrified wretch
off at the top of his speed, and ended the Latin for that time.
[Forster, i. 356.]
Friedrich's Latin could never come to much, under these
impediments. But he retained some smatterings of it in mature
life; and was rather fond of producing his classical scraps,--
often in an altogether mouldy, and indeed hitherto inexplicable
condition. "De gustibus non est disputandus," "Beati
possEdentes," "CompIlle intrare," "BeatUS pauperes spiritus;" italic> the meaning of these can be guessed: but "Tot
verbas tot spondera," for example,--what can any
commentator make of that? "Festina lente," "Dominus
vobiscum," "Flectamus genua," "Quod bene notandum;"
these phrases too, and some three or four others of the like, have
been riddled from his Writings by diligent men: [Preuss (i. 24)
furnishes the whole stock of them.] "O tempora, O mores!
You see, I don't forget my Latin," writes he once.
The worst fruit of these contraband operations was, that they
involved the Boy in clandestine practices, secret disobediences,
apt to be found out from time to time, and tended to alienate his
Father from him. Of which sad mutual humor we already find traces
in that early Wusterhausen Document: "Not to be so dirty," says
the reproving Father. And the Boy does not take to hunting at all,
likes verses, story-books, flute-playing better; seems to be of
effeminate tendencies, an EFFEMINIRTER KERL; affects French modes,
combs out his hair like a cockatoo, the foolish French fop,
instead of conforming to the Army-regulation, which prescribes
close-cropping and a club!
This latter grievance Friedrich Wilhelm decided, at last, to
abate, and have done with; this, for one. It is an authentic fact,
though not dated,--dating perhaps from about Fritz's fifteenth
year. "Fritz is a QUERPFEIFER UND POET," not a Soldier! would his
indignant Father growl; looking at those foreign effeminate ways
of his. QUERPFEIFE, that is simply "German-flute," "CROSS-PIPE"
(or FIFE of any kind, for we English have thriftily made two
useful words out of the Deutsch root); "Cross-pipe," being held
across the mouth horizontally. Worthless employment, if you are
not born to be of the regimental band! thinks Friedrich Wilhelm.
Fritz is celebrated, too, for his fine foot; a dapper little
fellow, altogether pretty in the eyes of simple female courtiers,
with his blond locks combed out at the temples, with his bright
eyes, sharp wit, and sparkling capricious ways. The cockatoo
locks, these at least we will abate! decides the Paternal mind.
And so, unexpectedly, Friedrich Wilhelm has commanded these bright
locks, as contrary to military fashion, of which Fritz has now
unworthily the honor of being a specimen, to be ruthlessly shorn
away. Inexorable: the HOF-CHIRURGUS (Court-Surgeon, of the nature
of Barber-Surgeon), with scissors and comb, is here; ruthless
Father standing by. Crop him, my jolly Barber; close down to the
accurate standard; soaped club, instead of flowing locks;
we suffer no exceptions in this military department: I stand here
till it is done. Poor Fritz, they say, had tears in his eyes;
but what help in tears? The judicious Chirurgus, however, proved
merciful. The judicious Chirurgus struck in as if nothing loath,
snack, snack; and made a great show of clipping. Friedrich Wilhelm
took a newspaper till the job were done; the judicious Barber,
still making a great show of work, combed back rather than cut off
these Apollo locks; did Fritz accurately into soaped club, to the
cursory eye; but left him capable of shaking out his chevelure
again on occasion,--to the lasting gratitude of Fritz. [Preuss,
i. 16.]
THE NOLTENIUS-AND-PANZENDORF DRILL-EXERCISE.
On the whole, as we said, a youth needs good assimilating power,
if he is to grow in this world! Noltenius aud Panzendorf, for
instance, they were busy "teaching Friedrich religion." Rather a
strange operation this too, if we were to look into it. We will
not look too closely. Another pair of excellent most solemn
drill-sergeants, in clerical black serge; they also are busy
instilling dark doctrines into the bright young Boy, so far as
possible; but do not seem at any time to have made too deep an
impression on him. May we not say that, in matter of religion too,
Friedrich was but ill-bested? Enlightened Edict-of-Nantes
Protestantism, a cross between Bayle and Calvin: that was but
indifferent babe's milk to the little creature. Nor could
Noltenius's Catechism, and ponderous drill-exercise in orthodox
theology, much inspire a clear soul with pieties, and tendencies
to soar Heavenward.
Alas, it is a dreary litter indeed, mere wagon-load on
wagon-load of shot-rubbish, that is heaped round this new human
plant, by Noltenius and Company, among others. A wonder only that
they did not extinguish all Sense of the Highest in the poor young
soul, and leave only a Sense of the Dreariest and Stupidest. But a
healthy human soul can stand a great deal. The healthy soul shakes
off, in an unexpectedly victorious manner, immense masses of dry
rubbish that have been shot upon it by its assiduous pedagogues
and professors. What would become of any of us otherwise! Duhan,
opening the young soul, by such modest gift as Duhan had, to
recognize black from white a little, in this embroiled high
Universe, is probably an exception in some small measure.
But, Duhan excepted, it may be said to have been in spite of most
of his teachers, and their diligent endeavors, that Friedrich did
acquire some human piety; kept the sense of truth alive in his
mind; knew, in whatever words he phrased it, the divine eternal
nature of Duty; and managed, in the muddiest element and most
eclipsed Age ever known, to steer by the heavenly loadstars and
(so we must candidly term it) to FOLLOW God's Law; in some
measure, with or without Noltenius for company. Noltenius's
CATECHISM, or ghostly Drill-manual for Fritz, at least the
Catechism he had plied Wilhelmina with, which no doubt was the
same, is still extant. [Preuss, i. 15;--specimens of it in
Rodenbeck.] A very abstruse Piece; orthodox Lutheran-Calvinist,
all proved from Scripture; giving what account it can of this
unfathomable Universe, to the young mind. To modern Prussians it
by no means shines as the indubitablest Theory of the Universe.
Indignant modern Prussians produce excerpts from it, of an
abstruse nature; and endeavor to deduce therefrom some of
Friedrich's aberrations in matters of religion, which became
notorious enough by and by. Alas, I fear, it would not have
been easy, even for the modern Prussian, to produce a perfect
Catechism for the use of Friedrich; this Universe still continues
a little abstruse!
And there is another deeper thing to be remarked: the notion of
"teaching" religion, in the way of drill-exercise; which is a very
strange notion, though a common one, and not peculiar to Noltenius
and Friedrich Wilhelm. Piety to God, the nobleness that inspires a
human soul to struggle Heavenward, cannot be "taught" by the most
exquisite catechisms,or the most industrious preachings and
drillings. No; alas, no. Only by far other methods,--chiefly by
silent continual Example, silently waiting for the favorable mood
and moment, and aided then by a kind of miracle, well enough named
"the grace of God,"--can that sacred contagion pass from soul into
soul. How much beyond whole Libraries of orthodox Theology is,
sometimes, the mute action, the unconscious look of a father, of a
mother, who HAD in them "Devoutness, pious Nobleness"! In whom the
young soul, not unobservant, though not consciously observing,
came at length to recognize it; to read it, in this irrefragable
manner: a seed planted thenceforth in the centre of his holiest
affections forevermore!
Noltenius wore black serge; kept the corners of his mouth well
down; and had written a Catechism of repute; but I know not that
Noltenius carried much seed of living piety about with him;
much affection from, or for, young Fritz he could not well carry.
On the whole, it is a bad outlook on the religious side;
and except in Apprenticeship to the rugged and as yet repulsive
Honesties of Friedrich Wilhelm, I see no good element in it.
Bayle-Calvin, with Noltenius and Catechisms of repute: there is no
"religion" to be had for a little Fritz out of all that.
Endless Doubt will be provided for him out of all that, probably
disbelief of all that;--and, on the whole, if any form at all, a
very scraggy form of moral existence; from which the Highest shall
be hopelessly absent; and in which anything High, anything not Low
and Lying, will have double merit.
It is indeed amazing what quantities and kinds of extinct ideas
apply for belief, sometimes in a menacing manner, to the poor mind
of man, and poor mind of child, in these days. They come bullying
in upon him, in masses, as if they were quite living ideas;
ideas of a dreadfully indispensable nature, the evident
counterpart, and salutary interpretation, of Facts round him,
which, it is promised the poor young creature, he SHALL recognize
to correspond with them, one day. At which "correspondence," when
the Facts are once well recognized, he has at last to ask himself
with amazement, "Did I ever recognize it, then?" Whereby come
results incalculable; not good results any of them;--some of them
unspeakably bad! The ease of Crown-Prince Friedrich in Berlin is
not singular; all cities and places can still show the like.
And when it will end, is not yet clear. But that it ever should
have begun, will one day be the astonishment. As if the divinest
function of a human being were not even that of believing;
of discriminating, with his God-given intellect, what is from what
is not; and as if the point were, to render that either an
impossible function, or else what we must sorrowfully call a
revolutionary, rebellious and mutinous one. O Noltenius,
O Panzendorf, do for pity's sake take away your Catechetical ware;
and say either nothing to the poor young Boy, or some small thing
he will find to be BEYOND doubt when he can judge of it!
Fever, pestilence, are bad for the body; but Doubt, impious
mutiny, doubly impious hypocrisy, are these nothing for the mind?
Who would go about inculcating Doubt, unless he were far astray
indeed, and much at a loss for employment!
But the sorest fact in Friedrich's schooling, the forest, for the
present, though it ultimately proved perhaps the most beneficent
one, being well dealt with by the young soul, and nobly subdued to
his higher uses, remains still to be set forth. Which will be a
long business, first and last!
Chapter XII.
CROWN-PRINCE FALLS INTO DISFAVOR WITH PAPA.
Those vivacities of young Fritz, his taste for music, finery,
those furtive excursions into the domain of Latin and forbidden
things, were distasteful and incomprehensible to Friedrich
Wilhelm: Where can such things end? They begin in disobedience and
intolerable perversity; they will be the ruin of Prussia and of
Fritz!--Here, in fact, has a great sorrow risen. We perceive the
first small cracks of incurable divisions in the royal household;
the breaking out of fountains of bitterness, which by and by
spread wide enough. A young sprightly, capricions and vivacious
Boy, inclined to self-will, had it been permitted; developing
himself into foreign tastes, into French airs and ways; very ill
seen by the heavy-footed practical Germanic Majesty.
The beginnings of this sad discrepancy are traceable from
Friedrich's sixth or seventh year: "Not so dirty, Boy!" And there
could be no lack of growth in the mutual ill-humor, while the Boy
himself continued growing; enlarging in bulk and in activity of
his own. Plenty of new children come, to divide our regard withal,
and more are coming; five new Princesses, wise little Ulrique the
youngest of them (named of Sweden and the happy Swedish Treaty),
whom we love much for her grave staid ways. Nay, next after
Ulrique comes even a new Prince; August Wilhelm, ten years younger
than Friedrich; and is growing up much more according to the
paternal heart. Pretty children, all of them, more or less;
and towardly, and comfortable to a Father;--and the worst of them
a paragon of beauty, in comparison to perverse, clandestine,
disobedient Fritz, with his French fopperies, flutings, and
cockatoo fashions of hair!--
And so the silent divulsion, silent on Fritz's part, exploding
loud enough now and then on his Father's part, goes steadily on,
splitting ever wider; new offences ever superadding themselves.
Till, at last, the rugged Father has grown to hate the son;
and longs, with sorrowful indignation, that it were possible to
make August Wilhelm Crown-Prince in his stead. This Fritz ought to
fashion himself according to his Father's pattern, a well-meant
honest pattern; and he does not! Alas, your Majesty, it cannot be.
It is the new generation come; which cannot live quite as the old
one did. A perennial controversy in human life; coeval with the
genealogies of men. This little Boy should have been the excellent
paternal Majesty's exact counterpart; resembling him at all
points, "as a little sixpence does a big half-crown:" but we
perceive he cannot. This is a new coin, with a stamp of its own.
A surprising FRIEDRICH D'OR this; and may prove a good piece yet;
but will never be the half-crown your Majesty requires!--
Conceive a rugged thick-sided Squire Western, of supreme degree,--
or this Squire Western is a hot Hohenzollern, and wears a crown
royal;--conceive such a burly NE-PLUS-ULTRA of a Squire, with his
broad-based rectitudes and surly irrefragabilities; the honest
German instincts of the man, convictions certain as the Fates, but
capable of no utterance, or next to none, in words; and that he
produces a Son who takes into Voltairism, piping, fiddling and
belles-lettres, with apparently a total contempt for Grumkow and
the giant-regiment! Sulphurous rage, in gusts or in lasting
tempests, rising from a fund of just implacability, is inevitable.
Such as we shall see.
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