Kitabı oku: «History of Friedrich II of Prussia — Volume 09», sayfa 6
Prag is a place full of sights: his Majesty, dashing about in all quarters, has a busy time; affairs of state (Julich and Berg principally) alternating with what we now call the LIONS. Zisca's drum, for instance, in the Arsenal here? Would your Majesty wish to see Zisca's own skin, which he bequeathed to be a drum when HE had done with it?"NARRENPOSSEN!"—for indeed the thing is fabulous, though in character with Zisca. Or the Council-Chamber window, out of which "the Three Prag Projectiles fell into the Night of things," as a modern Historian expresses it? Three Official Gentlemen, flung out one morning, [13th (23d) May, 1618 (Kohler, p. 507).] 70 feet, but fell on "sewerage," and did not die, but set the whole world on fire? That is too certain, as his Majesty knows: that brought the crowning of the Winter-King, Battle of the Weissenberg, Thirty-Years War; and lost us Jagerndorf and much else.
Or Wallenstein's Palace,—did your Majesty look at that? A thing worth glancing at, on the score of History and even of Natural-History. That rugged son of steel and gunpowder could not endure the least noise in his sleeping-room or even sitting-room,—a difficulty in the soldiering way of life;—and had, if I remember, one hundred and thirty houses torn away in Prag, and sentries posted all round in the distance, to secure silence for his much-meditating indignant soul. And yonder is the Weissenberg, conspicuous in the western suburban region: and here in the eastern, close by, is the Ziscaberg;—O Heaven, your Majesty, on this Zisca-Hill will be a new "Battle of Prag," which will throw the Weissenberg into eclipse; and there is awful fighting coming on in these parts again!
The THIRD of the considerable dialogues in Prag was on this same Monday night; when his Majesty went to wait upon the Kaiserinn, and the Kaiser soon accidentally joined them. Precious gracious words passed;—on Berg and Julich nothing particular, that we hear;—and the High Personages, with assurances of everlasting friendship, said adieu; and met no more in this world. On his toilet-table Friedrich Wilhelm found a gold Tobacco-box, sent by the highest Lady extant; gold Tobacco-box, item gold Tobacco-stopper or Pipe-picker: such the parting gifts of her Imperial Majesty. Very precious indeed, and grateful to the honest heart;—yet testifying too (as was afterwards suggested to the royal mind) what these high people think of a rustic Orson King; and how they fling their nose into the air over his Tabagies and him.
On the morrow morning early, Friedrich Wilhelm rolls away again homewards, by Karlsbad, by Baireuth; all the cannon of Prag saying thrice, Good speed to him. "He has had a glorious time," said the Berlin Court-lady to Queen Sophie one evening, "no end of kindness from the Imperial Majesties: but has he brought Berg and Julich in his pocket?"—Alas, not a fragment of them; nor of any solid thing whatever, except it be the gold Tobacco-box; and the confirmation of our claims on East-Friesland (cheap liberty to let us vindicate them if we can), if you reckon that a solid thing. These two Imperial gifts, such as they are, he has consciously brought back with him;—and perhaps, though as yet unconsciously, a third gift of much more value, once it is developed into clearness: some dim trace of insight into the no-meaning of these high people; and how they consider US as mere Orsons and wild Bisons, whom they will do the honor to consume as provision, if we behave well!
The great King Friedrich, now Crown-Prince at Ruppin, writing of this Journey long afterwards,—hastily, incorrectly, as his wont is, in regard to all manner of minute outward particulars; and somewhat maltreating, or at least misplacing, even the inward meaning, which was well known to him WITHOUT investigation, but which he is at no trouble to DATE for himself, and has dated at random,—says, in his thin rapid way, with much polished bitterness:—
"His [King Friedrich Wilhelm's] experience on this occasion served to prove that good-faith and the virtues, so contrary to the corruption of the age, do not succeed in it. Politicians have banished sincerity (LA CANDEUR) into private life: they look upon themselves as raised quite above the laws which they enjoin on other people; and give way without reserve to the dictates of their own depraved mind.
"The guaranty of Julich and Berg, which Seckendorf had formally promised in the name of the Emperor, went off in smoke; and the Imperial Ministers were in a disposition so opposed to Prussia, the King saw clearly [not for some years yet] that if there was a Court in Europe intending to cross his interests, it was certainly that of Vienna. This Visit of his to the Emperor was like that of Solon to Croesus [Solon not I recognizable, in the grenadier costume, amid the tobacco-smoke, and dim accompaniments?]—and he returned to Berlin, rich still in his own virtue. The most punctilious censors could find no fault in his conduct, except a probity carried to excess. The Interview ended as those of Kings often do: it cooled [not for some time yet], or, to say better, it extinguished the friendship there had been between the two Courts. Friedrich Wilhelm left Prag full of contempt [dimly, altogether unconsciously, tending to have some contempt, and in the end to be full of it] for the deceitfulness and pride of the Imperial Court: and the Emperor's Ministers disdained a Sovereign who looked without interest on frivolous ceremonials and precedences. Him they considered too ambitious in aiming at the Berg-and-Julich succession: them he regarded [came to regard] as a pack of knaves, who had broken their word, and were not punished for it."
Very bitter, your Majesty; and, in all but the dates, true enough. But what a drop of concentrated absinthe follows next, by way of finish,—which might itself have corrected the dating!
"In spite of so many subjects of discontent, the King wedded his Eldest Son [my not too fortunate self], out of complaisance to the Vienna Court, with a Princess of Brunswick-Bevern, Niece to the Empress:"—bitter fact; necessitating change of date in the paragraphs just written. [OEuvres de Frederic (Memoires de Brandenbourg), i. 162, 163.]
Friedrich Wilhelm, good soul, cherishes the Imperial gifts, Tobacco-box included;—claps the Arms of East-Friesland on his escutcheon; will take possession of Friesland, if the present Duke die heirless, let George of England say what he will. And so he rolls homeward, by way of Baireuth. He stayed but a short while in Karlsbad; has warned his Wilhelmina that he will be at Baireuth on the 9th of the month. [Wilhelmina, ii. 55.]
Wilhelmina is very poorly; "near her time," as wives say; rusticating in "the Hermitage," a Country-House in the vicinity of Baireuth; Husband and Father-in-law gone away, towards the Bohemian frontier, to hunt boars. Oh, the bustle and the bother that high Lady had; getting her little Country House stretched out to the due pitch to accommodate everybody,—especially her foolish Sister of Anspach and foolish Brother-in-law and suite,—with whom, by negligence of servants and otherwise, there had like to have risen incurable quarrel on the matter. But the dexterous young Wife, gladdest; busiest and weakliest of hopeful creatures, contrived to manage everything, like a Female Fieldmarshal, as she was. Papa was delighted; bullied the foolish Anspach people,—or would have done so, had not I intervened, that the matter might die. Papa was gracious, happy; very anxious about me in my interesting state. "Thou hast lodged me to perfection, good Wilhelmina. Here I find my wooden stools, tubs to wash in; all things as if I were at Potsdam:—a good girl; and thou must take care of thyself, my child (MEIN KIND)."
At dinner, his Majesty, dreading no ill, but intent only on the practical, got into a quiet, but to me most dreadful, lecture to the old Margraf (my Father-in-law) upon debt and money and arrears: How he, the Margraf, was cheated at every turn, and led about by the nose, and kept weltering in debt: how he should let the young Margraf go into the Offices, to supervise, and withal to learn tax-matters and economics betimes. How he (Friedrich Wilhelm) would send him a fellow from Berlin who understood such things, and would drill his scoundrels for him! To which the old Margraf, somewhat flushed in the face, made some embarrassed assent, knowing it in fact to be true; and accepted the Berlin man:—but he made me (his poor Daughter-in-law) smart for it afterwards: "Not quite dead YET, Madam; you will have to wait a little!"—and other foolish speech; which required to be tempered down again by a judicious female mind.
Grumkow himself was pleasant on this occasion; told us of Kladrup, the Prag etiquettes; and how he was like to go mad seeing his Majesty so humiliate himself. Fraulein Grumkow, a niece of his, belonging to the Austrian court, who is over here with the rest, a satirical intriguing baggage, she, I privately perceive, has made a conquest of my foolish Brother-in-law, the Anspach Margraf here;—and there will be jealousies, and a cat-and-dog life over yonder, worse than ever! Tush, why should we talk?—These are the phenomena at Baireuth; Husband and Father-in-law having quitted their boar-hunt and hurried home.
After three days, Friedrich Wilhelm rolled away again; lodged, once more, at Meuselwitz, with abstruse Seckendorf, and his good old Wife, who do the hospitalities well when they must, in spite of the single candle once visible. On the morrow after which, 14th August, 1732, his Majesty is off again, "at four in the morning," towards Leipzig, intending to be home that night, though it is a long drive. At Leipzig, not to waste time, he declines entering the Town; positively will not, though the cannon-salvos are booming all round;—"breakfasts in the suburbs, with a certain Horse-dealer (ROSS-HANDLER) now deceased:" a respectable Centaur, capable, no doubt, of bargaining a little about cavalry mountings, while one eats, with appetite and at one's ease. Which done, Majesty darts off again, the cannon-salvos booming out a second time;—and by assiduous driving gets home to Potsdam about eight at night. And so has happily ENDED this Journey to Kladrup: [Fassmann, pp. 474-479; Wilhelmina, ii. 46-55; Pollnitz, ii. 407-412; Forster, i. 328-334.]
Chapter V. — GHOST OF THE DOUBLE-MARRIAGE RISES; TO NO PURPOSE
We little expected to see the "Double-Marriage" start up into vitality again, at this advanced stage; or, of all men, Seckendorf, after riding 25,000 miles to kill the Double-Marriage, engaged in resuscitating it! But so it is: by endless intriguing, matchless in History or Romance, the Austrian Court had, at such expense to the parties and to itself, achieved the first problem of stifling the harmless Double-Marriage; and now, the wind having changed, it is actually trying its hand the opposite way.
Wind is changed: consummate Robinson has managed to do his thrice-salutary "Treaty of Vienna;" [16th March, 1731, the TAIL of it (accession of the Dutch, of Spain, &c.) not quite coiled up till 20th February, 1732: Scholl, i. 218-222.] to clout up all differences between the Sea-Powers and the Kaiser, and restore the old Law of Nature,—Kaiser to fight the French, Sea-Powers to feed and pay him while engaged in that necessary job. And now it would be gratifying to the Kaiser, if there remained, on this side of the matter, no rent anywhere, if between his chief Sea ally and his chief Land one, the Britannic Majesty and the Prussian, there prevailed a complete understanding, with no grudge left.
The honor of this fine resuscitation project is ascribed to Robinson by the Vienna people: "Robinson's suggestion," they always say: how far it was, or whether at all it was or not, nobody at present knows. Guess rather, if necessary, it had been the Kaiser's own! Robinson, as the thing proceeds, is instructed from St. James's to "look on and not interfere;" [Despatches, in State-Paper Office] Prince Eugene, too, we can observe, is privately against it, though officially urgent, and doing his best. Who knows,—or need know?
Enough that High Heads are set upon it; that the diplomatic wigs are all wagging with it, from about the beginning of October, 1732; and rumors are rife and eager, occasionally spurting out into the Newspapers: Double-Marriage after all, hint the old Rumors: Double-Marriage somehow or other; Crown-Prince to have his English Princess, Prince Fred of England to console the Brunswick one for loss of her Crown-Prince; or else Prince Karl of Brunswick to—And half a dozen other ways; which Rumor cannot settle to its satisfaction. The whispers upon it, from Hanover, from Vienna, at Berlin, and from the Diplomatic world in general, occasionally whistling through the Newspapers, are manifold and incessant,—not worthy of the least attention from us here. [Forster, iii. 111, 120, 108, 113, 122.] What is certain is, Seckendorf, in the end of October, is corresponding on it with Prince Eugene; has got instructions to propose the matter in Tobacco-Parliament; and does not like it at all. Grumkow, who perhaps has seen dangerous clouds threatening to mount upon him, and never been quite himself again in the Royal Mind since that questionable NOSTI business, dissuades earnestly, constantly. "Nothing but mischief will come of such a proposal," says Grumkow steadily; and for his own share absolutely declines concern in it.
But Prince Eugene's orders are express; remonstrances, cunctations only strengthen the determination of the High Heads or Head: Forward with this beautiful scheme! Seckendorf, puckered into dangerous anxieties, but summoning all his cunning, has at length, after six weeks' hesitation, to open it, as if casually, in some favorable hour, to his Prussian Majesty. December 5th, 1732, as we compute;—a kind of epoch in his Majesty's life. Prussian Majesty stares wide-eyed; the breath as if struck out of him; repeats, "Julich and Berg absolutely secured, say you? But—hm, na!"—and has not yet taken in the unspeakable dimensions of the occurrence. "What? Imperial Majesty will make me break my word before all the world? Imperial Majesty has been whirling me about, face now to the east, face straightway round to the west: Imperial Majesty does not feel that I am a man and king at all; takes me for a mere machine, to be seesawed and whirled hither and thither, like a rotatory Clothes-horse, to dry his Imperial Majesty's linen upon. TAUSEND HIMMEL—!"
The full dimensions of all this did not rise clear upon the intellect of Prussian Majesty,—a slow intellect, but a true and deep, with terrible earthquakes and poetic fires lying under it,—not at once, or for months, perhaps years to come. But they had begun to dawn upon him painfully here; they rose gradually into perfect clearness: all things seen at last as what they were;—with huge submarine earthquake for consequence, and total change of mind towards Imperial Majesty and the drying of his Pragmatic linen, in Friedrich Wilhelm. Amiable Orson, true to the heart; amiable, though terrible when too much put upon!
This dawning process went on for above two years to come, painfully, reluctantly, with explosions, even with tears. But here, directly on the back of Seckendorf's proposal, and recorded from a sure hand, is what we may call the peep-of-day in that matter: First Session of Tobacco-Parliament, close after that event. Event is on the 5th December, 1732; Tobacco Session is of the 6th;—glimpse of it is given by Speaker Grumkow himself; authentic to the bone.
SESSION OF TOBACCO-PARLIAMENT, 6th DECEMBER, 1732
Grumkow, shattered into "headache" by this Session, writes Report of it to Seckendorf before going to bed. Look, reader, into one of the strangest Political Establishments; and how a strange Majesty comports himself there, directly after such proposal from Vienna to marry with England still!—"Schwerin" is incidentally in from Frankfurt-on-Oder, where his Regiment and business usually lie: the other Honorable Members we sufficiently know. Majesty has been a little out of health lately; perceptibly worse the last two days. "Syberg" is a Gold-cook (Alchemical gentleman, of very high professions), came to Berlin some time ago; whom his Majesty, after due investigation, took the liberty to hang. [Forster, iii. 126.] Readers can now understand what speaker Grumkow writes, and despatches by his lackey, in such haste:—
"I never saw such a scene as this evening. Derschau, Schwerin, Buddenbrock, Rochow, Flanz were present. We had been about an hour in the Red Room [languidly doing our tobacco off and on], when he [the King] had us shifted into the Little Room: drove out the servants; and cried, looking fixedly at me: 'No, I cannot endure it any longer! ES STOSSET MIR DAS HERZ AB,' cried he, breaking into German: 'It crushes the heart out of me; to make me do a bit of scoundrelism, me, me! I say; no, never! Those damned intrigues; may the Devil take them!'—
"EGO (Grumkow). 'Of course, I know of nothing. But I do not comprehend your Majesty's inquietude, coming thus on the sudden, after our common indifferent mood.'
"KING. 'What, make me a villain! I will tell it right out. Certain damned scoundrels have been about betraying me. People that should have known me better have been trying to lead me into a dishonorable scrape'—("Here I called in the hounds, JE ROMPIS LES CHIENS," reports Grumkow, "for he was going to blab everything; I interrupted, saying):—
"EGO. 'But, your Majesty, what is it ruffles you so? I know not what you talk of. Your Majesty has honorable people about you; and the man who lets himself be employed in things against your Majesty must be a traitor.'
"KING. 'Yes, JA, JA. I will do things that will surprise them. I—'
"And, in short, a torrent of exclamations: which I strove to soften by all manner of incidents and contrivances; succeeding at last,"—by dexterity and time (but, at this point, the light is now blown out, and we SEE no more):—"so that he grew quite calm again, and the rest of the evening passed gently enough.
"Well, you see what the effect of your fine Proposal is, which you said he would like! I can tell you, it is the most detestable incident that could have turned up. I know, you had your orders: but you may believe and depend on it, he has got his heart driven rabid by the business, and says, 'Who knows now whether that villain Syberg' Gold-cook, that was hanged the other day, 'was not set on by some people to poison me?' In a word, he was like a madman.
"What struck me most was when he repeated, 'Only think! Think! Who would have expected it of people that should have known me; and whom I know, and have known, better than they fancy!'"—Pleasant passage for Seckendorf to chew the cud upon, through the night-watches!
"In fine, as I was somewhat confused; and anxious, above all, to keep him from exploding with the secret, I cannot remember everything, But Derschau, who was more at his ease, will be able to give you a full account. He [the King] said more than once: 'THIS was his sickness; the thing that ailed him, this: it gnawed his heart, and would be the death of him!' He certainly did not affect; he was in a very convulsive condition. [JARNI-BLEU, here is a piece of work, Herr Seckendorf!]—Adieu, I have a headache." Whereupon to bed.
"GRUMKOW."
[Forster, iii. 135, 136.]
This Hansard Report went off direct to Prince Eugene; and ought to have been a warning to the high Vienna heads and him. But they persisted not the less to please Robinson or themselves; considering his Prussian Majesty to be, in fact, a mere rotatory Clothes-horse for drying the Imperial linen on; and to have no intellect at all, because he was without guile, and had no vulpinism at all. In which they were very much mistaken indeed. History is proud to report that the guileless Prussian Majesty, steadily attending to his own affairs in a wise manner, though hoodwinked and led about by Black-Artists as he had been, turned out when Fact and Nature subsequently pronounced upon it, to have had more intellect than the whole of them together,—to have been, in a manner, the only one of them that had any real "intellect," or insight into Fact and Nature, at all. Consummate Black-art Diplomacies overnetting the Universe, went entirely to water, running down the gutters to the last drop; and a prosperous Drilled Prussia, compact, organic in every part, from diligent plough-sock to shining bayonet and iron ramrod, remained standing. "A full Treasury and 200,000 well-drilled men would be the one guarantee to your Pragmatic Sanction," Prince Eugene had said. But that bit of insight was not accepted at Vienna; Black-art, and Diplomatic spider-webs from pole to pole, being thought the preferable method.
Enough, Seckendorf was ordered to manipulate and soothe down the Prussian Majesty, as surely would be easy; to continue his galvanic operations on the Double-Match, or produce a rotation in the purposes of the royal breast. Which he diligently strove to do, when once admitted to speech again;—Grumkow steadily declining to meddle, and only Queen Sophie, as we can fancy, auguring joyfully of it. Seckendorf, admitted to speech the third day after that explosive Session, snuffles his softest, his cunningest;—continues to ride diligently, the concluding portion (such it proved) of his 25,000 miles with the Prussian Majesty up and down through winter and spring; but makes not the least progress, the reverse rather.
Their dialogues and arguings on the matter, here and elsewhere, are lost in air; or gone wholly to a single point unexpectedly preserved for us. One day, riding through some village, Priort some say his Majesty calls it, some give another name,—advocate Seckendorf, in the fervor of pleading and arguing, said some word, which went like a sudden flash of lightning through the dark places of his Majesty's mind, and never would go out of it again while he lived after. In passionate moments, his Majesty spoke of it sometimes, a clangorous pathos in his tones, as of a thing hideous, horrible, never to be forgotten, which had killed him,—death from a friend's hand. "It was the 17th of April, 1733, [All the Books (Forster, ii. 142, for one) mention this utterance of his Majesty, on what occasion we shall see farther on; and give the date "1732," not 1733: but except as amended above, it refuses to have any sense visible at this distance. The Village of Priort is in the Potsdam region.] riding through Priort, a man said something to me: it was as if you had turned a dagger about in my heart. That man was he that killed me; there and then I got my death!"
A strange passion in that utterance: the deep dumb soul of his Majesty, of dumb-poetic nature, suddenly brought to a fatal clearness about certain things. "O Kaiser, Kaiser of the Holy Roman Empire; and this is your return for my loyal faith in you? I had nearly killed my Fritz, my Wilhelmina, broken my Feekin's heart and my own, and reduced the world to ruins for your sake. And because I was of faith more than human, you took me for a dog? O Kaiser, Kaiser!"—Poor Friedrich Wilhelm, he spoke of this often, in excited moments, in his later years; the tears running down his cheeks, and the whole man melted into tragic emotion: but if Fritz were there, the precious Fritz whom he had almost killed for their sake, he would say, flashing out into proud rage, "There is one that will avenge me, though; that one! DA STEHT EINER, DER MICH RACHEN WIRD!" [Forster, ii. 153.] Yes, your Majesty; perhaps that one. And it will be seen whether YOU were a rotatory Clothes-horse to dry their Pragmatic linen upon, or something different a good deal.
