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History of Friedrich II of Prussia V 7
T >> Thomas Carlyle >> History of Friedrich II of Prussia V 7 Pages: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11
On the morrow, Saturday, August 5th, certain Frenchmen from the
Garrison of Landau come across to pay their court and dine.
Which race of men Friedrich Wilhelm does not love; and now less
than ever, gloomily suspicious they may be come on parricide
Fritz's score,--you Rochow and Company keep an eye! By night and
by day an eye upon him! Friedrich Wilhelm was, no doubt, glad to
get away on the morrow afternoon; fairly out into the
Berg-Strasse, into the summer breezes and umbrageous woods, with
all his pertinents still safe about him; rushing towards Darmstadt
through the Sunday stillness, where he will arrive in the evening,
time enough. ["Sunday Evening arrive at Darmstadt," says
Seckendorf (in Forster, iii. 3), but by mistake calls it the "7th"
instead of "6th."]
The old Prince of Darmstadt, Ernst Ludwig, Landgraf of
Hessen-Darmstadt, age now sixty-three, has a hoary venerable
appearance, according to Pollnitz, "but sits a horse well, walks
well, and seems to enjoy perfect health,"--which we are glad to
hear of. What more concerns us, "he lives usually, quite retired,
in a small house upon the Square," in this extremely small
Metropolis of his, "and leaves his Heir-Apparent to manage all
business in the Palace and elsewhere." [Pollnitz, Memoirs
and Letters, ii. 66.] poor old Gentleman, he has the
biggest Palace almost in the world; only he could not finish it
for want of funds; and it lies there, one of the biggest
futilities, vexatious to look upon. No doubt the old Gentleman has
had vexations, plenty of them, first and last. He is now got
disgusted with the affairs of public life, and addicts himself
very much to "turning ivory," as the more eligible employment.
He lives in that small house of his, among his turning-lathes and
ivory shavings; dines in said small house, "at a table for four
persons:" only on Sunday, and above all on this Sunday, puts off
his apron; goes across to the Palace; dines there in state, with
his Heir and the Grandees. He has a kinship by affinity to
Friedrich Wilhelm; his Wife (dead long years since), Mother of
this Heir-Apparent, was an Anspach Princess, Aunt to the now Queen
Caroline of England. Poor old fellow, these insignificancies, and
that he descends direct from Philip the Magnanimous of Hessen
(Luther's Philip, who insisted on the supplementary Wife), are all
I know of him; and he is somewhat tragic to me there, turning
ivory in this extremely anarchic world. What the passages between
him and Friedrich Wilhelm were, on this occasion, shall remain
conjectural to all creatures. Friedrich Wilhelm said, this Sunday
evening at Darmstadt to his own Prince: "Still here, then?
I thought you would have been in Paris by this time!"--To which
the Prince, with artificial firmness, answered, He could
certainly, if he had wished; [Seckendorf (in Forster, iii.),
p. 3.] and being familiar with reproaches, perhaps hoped it was
nothing.
From Darmstadt to Frankfurt-on-Mayn is not quite forty miles, an
easy morning drive; through the old Country called of
Katzen-ellenbogen; CATS-ELBOW, a name ridiculous to hear.
[CATTIMELIBOCUM, that is, CATTUM-MELIBOCUM (CATTI a famed Nation,
MELIBOCUS the chief Hill or Fortress of their Country), is said to
be the original;--which has got changed; like ABALLABA into
"Appleby," or GOD ENCOMPASS US into "The Goat and Compasses,"
among ourselves.] Berg-Strasse and the Odenwald (FOREST of the
OTTI) are gone; but blue on the northeast yonder, if your Royal
Highness will please to look, may be seen summits of the SPESSART,
a much grander forest,--tall branchy timbers yonder, one day to be
masts of admirals, when floated down as far as Rotterdam,
whitherward one still meets them going. Spessart;--and nearer,
well hidden on the right, is an obscure village called DETTINGEN,
not yet become famous in the Newspapers of an idle world; of an
England surely very idle to go thither seeking quarrels! All which
is, naturally, in the highest degree indifferent to a Crown-Prince
so preoccupied.--They reach Frankfurt, Monday, still in good time.
Behold, at Frankfurt, the Trio of Vigilance, Buddenbrock and
Company (horrible to think of!) signify, "That we have the King's
express orders Not to enter the Town at all with your Royal
Highness. We, for our part, are to go direct into one of the Royal
Yachts, which swing at anchor here, and to wait in the same till
his Majesty have done seeing Frankfurt, and return to us." Here is
a message for the poor young Prince: Detected, prisoner, and a
volcanic Majesty now likely to be in full play when he returns!--
Gilt weathercock on the Mayn Bridge (which one Goethe used to look
at, in the next generation)--this, and the steeple-tops of
Frankfurt, especially that steeple-top with the grinning skull of
the mutinous malefactor on it, warning to mankind what mutiny
leads to; this, then, is what we are to see of Frankfurt; and with
such a symphony as our thoughts are playing in the background.
Unhappy Son, unhappy Father, once more!
Nay Friedrich Wilhelm got new lights in Frankfurt: Rittmeister
Katte had an estafette waiting for him there. Estafette with a
certain Letter, which the Rittmeister had picked up in Erlangen,
and has shot across by estafette to wait his Majesty here.
Majesty has read with open eyes and throat: Letter from the
Crown-Prince to Lieutenant Katte in Berlin: treasonous
Flight-project now indisputable as the sun at noon!--His Majesty
stept on board the Yacht in such humor as was never seen before:
"Detestable rebel and deserter, scandal of scandals--!"--it is
confidently written everywhere (though Seckendorf diplomatically
keeps silence), his Majesty hustled and tussled the unfortunate
Crown-Prince, poked the handle of his cane into his face and made
the nose bleed,--"Never did a Brandenburg face suffer the like of
this!" cried the poor Prince, driven to the edge of mad ignition
and one knows not what: when the Buddenbrocks, at whatever peril
interfered; got the Prince brought on board a different Yacht;
and the conflagration moderated for the moment. The Yachts get
under way towards Mainz and down the Rhine-stream. The Yachts
glide swiftly on the favoring current, taking advantage of what
wind there may be: were we once ashore at Wesel in our own
country,--wait till then, thinks his Majesty!
And so it was on these terms that Friedrich made his first
acquaintance with the beauties of the Rhine;--readers can judge
whether he was in a temper very open to the picturesque. I know
not that they paused at Mainz, or recollected Barbarossa's
World-Tournament, or the Hochheim vineyards at all: I see the
young man's Yacht dashing in swift gallop, not without danger,
through the Gap of Bingen; dancing wildly on the boiling
whirlpools of St. Goar, well threading the cliffs;--the young man
gloomily insensible to danger of life, and charm of the
picturesque. Coblenz (CONFLUENTIA), the Moselle and
Ehrenbreitstein: Majesty, smoking on deck if he like, can look at
these through grimly pacifying tobacco; but to the Crown-Prince
life itself is fallen haggard and bankrupt.
Over against Coblenz, nestled in between the Rhine and the foot of
Ehrenbreitstein, [Pollnitz, Memoirs and Letters, italic> iii. 180.] there, perhaps even now, in his Hunting Lodge
of Kerlich yonder, is his Serene Highness the fat little Kurfurst
of Trier, one of those Austrian Schonborns (Brother to him of
Bamberg); upon whom why should we make a call? We are due at Bonn;
the fortunate young Kurfurst of Koln, richest Pluralist in the
Church, expects us at his Residence there. Friedrich Wilhelm views
the fine Fortress of Ehrenbreitstein:--what would your Majesty
think if this were to be yours in a hundred years; this and much
else, by way of compound-interest for the Berg-and-Julich and
other outstanding debts? Courage, your Majesty!--On the fat little
Kurfurst, at Kerlich here, we do not call: probably out hunting;
"hunts every day," [Busching, Beitrage,
iv. 201.] as if it were his trade, poor little soul.
At Bonn, where we do step ashore to lodge with a lean Kurfurst,
Friedrich Wilhelm strictly charges, in my (Seckendorf's) hearing,
the Trio of Vigilance to have an eye; to see that they bring the
Prince on board again, "LIVING OR DEAD."--No fear, your Majesty.
Prince listened with silent, almost defiant patience, "MIT GROSSER
GEDULD." [Seckendorf (in Forster, iii. 4).] At Bonn the Prince
contrived to confide to Seckendorf, "That he had in very truth
meant to run away: he could not, at the age he was come to, stand
such indignities, actual strokes as in the Camp of Radewitz;--and
he would have gone long since, had it not been for the Queen and
the Princess his Sister's sake. He could not repent what he had
done: and if the King did not cease beating him in that manner,
&c., he would still do it. For loss of his own life, such a life
as his had grown, he cared little; his chief misery was, that
those Officers who had known of the thing should come to
misfortune by his means. If the King would pardon these poor
gentlemen, he would tell him everything. For the rest, begged
Seckendorf to help him in this labyrinth;--nothing could ever so
oblige him as help now;" and more of the like sort. These things
he said, at Bonn, to Seckendorf, the fountain of all his woes.
[Ibid.] What Seckendorf's reflections on this his sad handiwork
now were, we do not know. Probably he made none, being a
strong-minded case-hardened old stager; but resolved to do what he
could for the poor youth. Somewhere on this route, at Bonn more
likely than elsewhere, Friedrich wrote in pencil three words to
Lieutenant Keith at Wesel, and got it to the Post-Office:
"SAUVEZ-VOUS, TOUT EST DECOUVERT (All is found out;--away)!"
[Wilhelmina (i. 265) says it was a Page of the Old Dessauer's, a
comrade of Keith's, who, having known in time, gave him warning.
Certain it is, this Note of Friedrich's, which the Books generally
assign as cause, could not have done it (infra, p. 275, and the
irrefragable date there).]
Clement August, expensive Kurfurst of Koln (Elector of Cologne, as
we call it), who does the hospitalities here at Bonn, in a grand
way, with "above a hundred and fifty chamberlains" for one item,--
glance at him, reader; perhaps we shall meet the man again. He is
younger Brother of the elegant ambitious Karl Albert, Kurfurst of
Bavaria, whom we have transiently heard of: sons both of them are
of that "Elector of Bavaria" who haunts us in the Marlborough
Histories,--who joined Louis XIV. in the Succession War, and got
hunted about at such a rate, after Blenheim especially. His Boys,
prisoners of the Kaiser, were bred up in a confiscated state, as
sons of a mere private gentleman; nothing visibly ahead of them,
at one time, but an obscure and extremely limited destiny of that
kind;--though now again, on French favor, and the turn of
Fortune's inconstant wheel, they are mounting very high.
Bavaria came all back to the old Elector of Bavaria;
even Marlborough's "Principality of MINDELHEIM" came. [At the
Peace of Baden (corollary to UTRECHT), 1714. Elector had been
"banned" (GEACHTET, solemnly drummed out), 1706; nothing but
French pay to live upon, till he got back: died 26th February,
1726, when Karl Albert succeeded (Michaelis, ii. 255).] And the
present Kurfurst, who will not do the Pragmatic Sanction at all,--
Kurfurst Karl Albert of Baiern, our old Karl Philip of Mannheim's
genealogical "Cousin;"--we heard of abstruse colleaguings there,
tendencies to break the Pragmatic Sanction altogether, and reduce
it to waste sheepskin! Not impossible Karl Albert will go high
enough. And this Clement August the cadet, he is Kurfurst of Koln;
by good election-tactics, and favor of the French, he has managed
to succeed an Uncle here: has succeeded at Osnabruck in like
fashion;--poor old Ernst August of Osnabruck (to whom we once saw
George I. galloping to die, and who himself soon after died), his
successor is this same Clement August, the turn for a CATHOLIC
Bishop being come at Osnabruck, and the French being kind.
Kurfurst of Koln, Bishop of Osnabruck, ditto of Paderborn and
Munster, ditto now of Hildesheim; richest Pluralist of the Church.
Goes about here in a languid expensive manner; "in green coat
trimmed with narrow silver-lace, small bag-wig done with French
garniture (SCHLEIFE) in front; and has red heels to his shoes."
A lanky indolent figure, age now thirty; "tall and slouching of
person, long lean face, hook-nose, black beard, mouth somewhat
open." [Busching ( Beitrage, iv. 201-204:
from a certain Travelling Tutor's MS. DIARY of 1731; where also is
detail of the Kurfurst's mode of Dining,--elaborate but dreary,
both mode and detail). His Schloss is now the Bonn University.]
Has above one hundred and fifty chamberlains;--and, I doubt not,
is inexpressibly wearisome to Friedrich Wilhelm in his Majesty's
present mood. Patience for the moment, and politeness above all
things!--The Trio of Vigilance had no difficulty with Friedrich;
brought him on board safe again next day, and all proceeded on
their voyage; the Kurfurst in person politely escorting as far
as Koln.
Koln, famed old City of the Three Kings, with its famed Cathedral
where those three gentlemen are buried, here the Kurfurst ceases
escorting; and the flat old City is left, exciting what
reflections it can. The architectural Dilettanti of the world
gather here; St. Ursula and her Eleven Thousand Virgins were once
massacred here, your Majesty; an English Princess she, it is said.
"NARREN-POSSEN (Pack of nonsense)!" grumbles Majesty.--Pleasant
Dusseldorf is much more interesting to his Majesty; the pleasant
Capital of Berg, which ought to be ours, if right could be done;
if old Pfalz would give up his crotchets; and the bowls, in the
big game playing at Seville and elsewhere, would roll fair!
Dusseldorf and that fine Palace of the Pfalzers, which ought to be
mine;--and here next is Kaiserswerth, a place of sieges,
cannonadings, known to those I knew. 'M-NA, from father to son and
grandson it goes on, and there is no end to trouble and war!--
His Majesty's next lodging is at Mors; old gaunt Castle in the
Town of Mors, which (thanks to Leopold of Anhalt-Dessau and the
Iron Ramrods) is now his Majesty's in spite of the Dutch.
There the lodging is, at an hour's drive westward from the
Rhine-shore:--where his Majesty quitted the River, I do not know;
nor whether the Crown-Prince went to Mors with him, or waited in
his Yacht; but guess the latter. His Majesty intends for Geldern
on the morrow, on matters of business thither, for the Town is
his: but what would the Prince, in the present state of things, do
there?--At Mors, Seckendorf found means to address his Majesty
privately, and snuffled into him suggestions of mercy to the
repentant Prince, and to the poor Officers whom he was so anxious
about. "Well, if he WILL confess everything, and leave off his
quirks and concealments: but I know he won't!" answered Majesty.
In that dilapidated Castle of Mors,--look at it, reader, though in
the dark; we may see it again, or the shadow of it, perhaps by
moonlight. A very gaunt old Castle; next to nothing living in it,
since the old Dessauer (by stratagem, and without shot fired)
flung out the Dutch, in the Treaty-of-Utrecht time; Mors Castle
and Territory being indisputably ours, though always withheld from
us on pretexts. [Narrative of the march thither (Night of 7th
November, 1712), and dexterous surprisal of the place, in
Leopoldi von Anhalt-Dessau Leben und Thaten
(Anonymous, by RANFFT), pp. 85-90;--where the Despatch of the
astonished Dutch Commandant himself, to their High Mightinesses,
is given. Part of the Orange Heritage, this Mors,--came by the
Great Elector's first Wife;--but had hung SUB LITE (though the
Parchments were plain enough) ever since our King William's death,
and earlier. Neuchatel, accepted instead of ORANGE, and not even
of the value of Mors, was another item of the same lot.
Besides which, we shall hear of old Palaces at Loo and other
dilapidated objects, incidentally in time coming.]
At Geldern, in the pressure of business next day, his Majesty got
word from Wesel, that Lieutenant Keith was not now to be found in
Wesel. "Was last seen there (that we can hear of) certain hours
before your Majesty's All-gracious Order arrived. Had saddled his
own horse; came ambling through the Brunen Gate, 'going out to
have a ride,' he said; and did not return."--"Keith gone,
scandalous Keith, whom I pardoned only few weeks ago; he too is in
the Plot! Will the very Army break its oath, then?" His Majesty
bursts into fire and flame, at these new tidings; orders that
Colonel Dumoulin (our expertest rogue-tracer) go instantly on the
scent of Keith, and follow him till found and caught. Also, on the
other hand, that the Crown-Prince be constituted prisoner;
sail down to Wesel, prisoner in his Yacht, and await upon the
Rhine there his Majesty's arrival. Formidable omens, it
is thought.
His Majesty, all business done in Geldern, drives across to Wesel;
can see Fritz's Yacht waiting duly in the River, and black Care
hovering over her. It is on the evening of the 12th of August,
1730. And so his Majesty ends this memorable Tour into the Reich;
but has not yet ended the gloomy miseries, for himself and others,
which plentifully sprung out of that.
Chapter VII.
CATASTROPHE, AND MAJESTY, ARRIVE IN BERLIN.
At Berlin dark rumors of this intended flight, and actual Arrest
of the Crown-Prince, are agitating all the world; especially
Lieutenant Katte, and the Queen and Wilhelmina, as we may suppose.
The first news of it came tragically on the young Princess.
[Apparently some rumor FROM FRANKFURT, which she confuses in her
after-memory with the specific news FROM WESEL; for her dates
here, as usual, are all awry (Wilhelmina, i. 246; Preuss, i. 42,
iv. 473; Seckendorf, in Forster, iii. 6).]
"Mamma had given a ball in honor of Papa's Birthday,"--Tuesday,
15th August, 1730;--and we were all dancing in the fine saloons of
Monbijou, with pretty intervals in the cool boscages and
orangeries of the place: all of us as happy as could be;
Wilhelmina, in particular, dancing at an unusual rate.
"We recommenced the ball after supper. For six years I had not
danced before; it was new fruit, and I took my fill of it, without
heeding much what was passing. Madame Bulow, who with others of
them had worn long faces all night, pleading 'illness' when one
noticed it, said to me several times: 'It is late, I wish you had
done,'--'EH, MON DIEU!' I answered, 'let me have enough of dancing
this one new time; it may be long before it comes again.'--
'That may well be!' said she. I paid no regard, but continued to
divert myself. She returned to the charge half an hour after:
'Will you end, then!' said she with a vexed air: (you are so
engaged, you have eyes for nothing.'--'You are in such a humor,'
I replied, 'that I know not what to make of it.'--'Look at the
Queen, then, Madam; and you will cease to reproach me!' A glance
which I gave that way filled me with terror. There sat the Queen,
paler than death, in a corner of the room, in low conference with
Sonsfeld and Countess Finkenstein. As my Brother was most in my
anxieties, I asked, If it concerned him? Bulow shrugged her
shoulders, answering, 'I don't know at all!' A moment after, the
Queen gave Good-night; and got into her carriage with me,--
speaking no word all the way to the Schloss; so that I thought my
Brother must be dead, and I myself took violent palpitations, and
Sonsfeld, contrary to orders, had at last to tell me in the course
of the night." Poor Wilhelmina, and poor Mother of Wilhelmina!
The fact, of Arrest, and unknown mischief to the Prince, is taken
for certain; but what may be the issues of it; who besides the
Prince have been involved in it, especially who will be found to
have been involved, is matter of dire guess to the three who are
most interested here. Lieutenant Katte finds he ought to dispose
of the Prince's effects which were intrusted to him; of the
thousand gold Thalers in particular, and, beyond and before all,
of the locked Writing-desk, in which lies the Prince's
correspondence, the very Queen and Princess likely to be concerned
in it! Katte despatches these two objects, the Money and the
little Desk, in all secrecy, to Madam Finkenstein, as to the
surest hand, with a short Note shadowing out what he thinks they
are: Countess Finkenstein, old General von Finkenstein's Wife, and
a second mother to the Prince, she, like her Husband, a sworn
partisan of the Prince and his Mother, shall do with these
precious and terrible objects what, to her own wise judgment,
seems best.
Madam Finkenstein carries them at once, in deep silence, to the
Queen. Huge dismay on the part of the Queen and Princess.
They know too well what Letters may be there: and there is a seal
on the Desk, and no key to it; neither must it, in time coming,
seem to have been opened, even if we could now open it.
A desperate pinch, and it must be solved. Female wit and
Wilhelmina did solve it, by some pre-eminently acute device of
their despair; [Wilhelmina, i. 253-257.] and contrived to get the
Letters out: hundreds of Letters, enough to be our death if read,
says Wilhelmina. These Letters they burnt; and set to writing
fast as the pen would go, other letters in their stead. Fancy the
mood of these two Royal Women, and the black whirlwind they were
in. Wilhelmina's despatch was incredible; pen went at the gallop
night and day: new letters, of old dates and of no meaning, are
got into the Desk again; the Desk closed, without mark of injury,
and shoved aside while it is yet time.--Time presses; his Majesty
too, and the events, go at gallop. Here is a Letter from his
Majesty, to a trusty Mistress of the Robes, or whatever she is;
which, let it arrive through what softening media it likes, will
complete the poor Queen's despair:--
"MY DEAR FRAU VON KAMECKE,--Fritz has attempted to desert. I have
been under the necessity to have him arrested. I request you to
tell my Wife of it in some good way, that the news may not terrify
her. And pity an unhappy Father.
"FRIEDRICH WILHELM."
[No date: "ARRIVED" (from Wesel, we conclude), Sunday, "20th
August," at the Palace of Berlin (Preuss, i. 42).]
The same post brought an order to the Colonel of the Gerns-d'Armes
to put that Lieutenant Katte of his under close confinement:--we
hope the thoughtless young fellow has already got out of the way?
He is getting his saddle altered: fettling about this and that;
does not consider what danger he is in. This same Sunday, his
Major met him on the street of Berlin; said, in a significant
tone, "You still HERE, Katte!"--"I go this night," answered Katte;
but he again put it off, did not go this night; and the order for
his arrest did come in. On the morrow morning, Colonel Pannewitz,
hoping now he was not there, went with the rhadamanthine order;
and finding the unlucky fellow, was obliged to execute it.
Katte lies in ward, awaiting what may be prepared for him.
Friedrich Wilhelm at Wesel has had rough passages with the Prince
and others. On the Saturday evening, 12th August 1730, [Preuss,
iv. 473; Seckendorf (Forster, iii. 6) says 13th, but WRONG.] his
Majesty had the Culprit brought on shore, to the Commandant's
House, for an interview. Culprit proving less remorseful than was
expected, and evidently not confessing everything, a loud terrible
scene ensued; which Friedrich Wilhelm, the unhappy Father, winded
up by drawing his sword to run the unnatural Son through the body.
Old General Mosel, Commandant of Wesel, sprang between them,
"Sire, cut me to death, but spare your Son!" and the sword was got
back to its scabbard; and the Prince lodged in a separate room,
two sentries with fixed bayonets keeping watch over him. Friedrich
Wilhelm did not see his face again for twelve months to come,--
"twelve months and three days."
Military gentlemen of due grimness interrogated the Prince next
evening, [Seckendorf (in Forster, iii. 5).] from a Paper drawn up
by his Majesty in the interim. Prince confesses little: Did design
to get across the Rhine to Landau; thence to Strasburg, Paris, in
the strictest incognito; intended to volunteer there, thought he
might take French service, profoundly incognito, and signalize
himself in the Italian War (just expected to break out), which
might have recovered him some favor from his Majesty: does not
tell clearly where his money came from; shy extremely of
elucidating Katte and Keith;--in fact, as we perceive, struggles
against mendacity, but will not tell the whole truth. "Let him lie
in ward, then; and take what doom the Laws have appointed for the
like of him!" Divine Laws, are they not? Well, yes, your Majesty,
divine and human;--or are there perhaps no laws but the human
sort, completely explicit in this case? "He is my Colonel at
least," thinks Friedrich Wilhelm, "and tried to desert and make
others desert. If a rebellious Crown-Prince, breaking his Father's
heart, find the laws still inarticulate; a deserting Colonel of
the Potsdam Regiment finds them speak plain enough. Let him take
the answer they give him?"
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