History of Friedrich II of Prussia — Volume 10

Much reviewing and heavy business followed at Konigsberg;—gift of Trakehnen, and departure of the Crown-Prince for Trakehnen, winding it up. Directly on the heel of which, his Majesty turned homewards, the Crown-Prince not to meet him till once at Berlin again. Majesty's first stage was at Pillau, where we have been. At Pillau, or next day at Dantzig, Pollnitz observed a change in his Majesty's humor, which had been quite sunshiny all this journey hitherto. At Dantzig Pollnitz first noticed it; but at every new stage it grew worse, evil accidents occurring to worsen it; and at Berlin it was worst of all;—and, alas, his poor Majesty never recovered his sunshine in this world again! Here is Pollnitz's account of the journey homewards:—

"Till now," till Pillau and Dantzig, "his Majesty had been in especially good humor; but in Dantzig his cheerfulness forsook him;—and it never came back. He arrived about ten at night in that City [Wednesday, 12th August, or thereby]; slept there; and was off again next morning at five. He drove only thirty miles this day; stopped in Lupow [coast road through Pommern], with Herr von Grumkow [the late Grumkow's Brother], Kammer President in this Pommern Province. From Lupow he went to a poor Village near Belgard, EIGHTY miles farther;"—last village on the great road, Belgard lying to left a little, on a side road;—"and stayed there overnight.

"At Belgard, next morning, he reviewed the Dragoon Regiment von Platen; and was very ill content with it. And nobody, with the least understanding of that business, but must own that never did Prussian Regiment manoeuvre worse. Conscious themselves how bad it was, they lost head, and got into open confusion. The King did all that was possible to help them into order again. He withdrew thrice over, to give the Officers time to recover themselves; but it was all in vain. The King, contrary to wont, restrained himself amazingly, and would not show his displeasure in public. He got into his carriage, and drove away with the Furst of Anhalt," Old Dessauer, "and Von Winterfeld," Captain in the Giant Regiment, "who is now Major-General von Winterfeld; [Major-General since 1743, of high fame; fell in fight, 7th September, 1757.] not staying to dine with General von Platen, as was always his custom with Commandants whom he had reviewed. He bade Prince Wilhelm and the rest of us stay and dine; he himself drove away,"—towards the great road again, and some uncertain lodging there.

"We stayed accordingly; and did full justice to the good cheer,"—though poor Platen would certainly look flustered, one may fancy. "But as the Prince was anxious to come up with his Majesty again, and knew not where he would meet him, we had to be very swift with the business.

"We found the King with Anhalt and Winterfeld, by and by; sitting in a village, in front of a barn, and eating a cold pie there, which the Furst of Anhalt had chanced to have with him; his Majesty, owing to what he had seen on the parade-ground, was in the utmost ill-humor (HOCHST UBLER LAUNE). Next day, Saturday, he went a hundred and fifty or two hundred miles; and arrived in Berlin at ten at night. Not expected there till the morrow; so that his rooms were locked,—her Majesty being over in Monbijou, giving her children a Ball;" [Pollnitz, ii. 534-537.]—and we can fancy what a frame of mind there was!

Nobody, not at first even the Doctors, much heeded this new fit of illness; which went and came: "changed temper," deeper or less deep gloom of "bad humor," being the main phenomenon to by-standers. But the sad truth was, his Majesty never did recover his sunshine; from Pillau onwards he was slowly entering into the shadows of the total Last Eclipse; and his journeyings and reviewings in this world were all done. Ten months hence, Pollnitz and others knew better what it had been!—

Chapter VII. — LAST YEAR OF REINSBERG: TRANSIT OF BALTIMORE AND OTHER

PERSONS AND THINGS

Friedrich had not been long home again from Trakehnen and Preussen, when the routine of things at Reinsberg was illuminated by Visitors, of brilliant and learned quality; some of whom, a certain Signor Algarotti for one, require passing mention here. Algarotti, who became a permanent friend or satellite, very luminous to the Prince, and was much about him in coming years, first shone out upon the scene at this time,—coming unexpectedly, and from the Eastward as it chanced.

On his own score, Algarotti has become a wearisome literary man to modern readers: one of those half-remembered men; whose books seem to claim a reading, and do not repay it you when given. Treatises, of a serious nature, ON THE OPERA; setting forth, in earnest, the potential "moral uses" of the Opera, and dedicated to Chatham; Neutonianismo per le Donne (Astronomy for Ladies): the mere Titles of such things are fatally sufficient to us; and we cannot, without effort, nor with it, recall the brilliancy of Algarotti and them to his contemporary world.

Algarotti was a rich Venetian Merchant's Son, precisely about the Crown-Prince's age; shone greatly in his studies at Bologna and elsewhere; had written Poesies (RIME); written especially that Newtonianism for the Dames (equal to Fontenelle, said Fame, and orthodox Newtonian withal, not heterodox or Cartesian); and had shone, respected, at Paris, on the strength of it, for three or four years past: friend of Voltaire in consequence, of Voltaire and his divine Emilie, and a welcome guest at Cirey; friend of the cultivated world generally, which was then laboring, divine Emilie in the van of it, to understand Newton and be orthodox in this department of things. Algarotti did fine Poesies, too, once and again; did Classical Scholarships, and much else: everywhere a clear-headed, methodically distinct, concise kind of man. A high style of breeding about him, too; had powers of pleasing, and used them: a man beautifully lucent in society, gentle yet impregnable there; keeping himself unspotted from the world and its discrepancies,—really with considerable prudence, first and last.

He is somewhat of the Bielfeld type; a Merchant's Son, we observe, like Bielfeld; but a Venetian Merchant's, not a Hamburg's; and also of better natural stuff than Bielfeld. Concentrated himself upon his task with more seriousness, and made a higher thing of it than Bielfeld; though, after all, it was the same task the two had. Alas, our "Swan of Padua" (so they sometimes called him) only sailed, paddling grandly, no-whither,—as the Swan-Goose of the Elbe did, in a less stately manner! One cannot well bear to read his Books. There is no light upon Friedrich to tempt us; better light than Bielfeld's there could have been, and much of it: but he prudently, as well as proudly, forbore such topics. He approaches very near fertility and geniality in his writings, but never reaches it. Dilettantism become serious and strenuous, in those departments—Well, it was beautiful to young Friedrich and the world at that time, though it is not to us!—Young Algarotti, twenty-seven this year, has been touring about as a celebrity these four years past, on the strength of his fine manners and Newtonianism for the Dames.

It was under escort of Baltimore, "an English Milord," recommended from Potsdam itself, that Algarotti came to Reinsberg; the Signor had much to do with English people now and after. Where Baltimore first picked him up, I know not: but they have been to Russia together; Baltimore by twelve years the elder of the two: and now, getting home towards England again, they call at Reinsberg in the fine Autumn weather;—and considerably captivate the Crown-Prince, Baltimore playing chief, in that as in other points. The visit lasted five days: [20th-25th September, 1739 (OEuvres de Frederic, xiv. p. xiv).] there was copious speech on many things;—discussion about Printing of the ANTI MACHIAVEL; Algarotti to get it printed in England, Algarotti to get Pine and his Engraved HENRIADE put under way; neither of which projects took effect;—readers can conceive what a charming five days these were. Here, in the Crown-Prince's own words, are some brief glimmerings which will suffice us:—

REINSBERG, 25th SEPT. 1739 (Crown-Prince to Papa).... that "nothing new has occurred in the Regiment, and we have few sick. Here has the English Milord, who was at Potsdam, passing through [stayed five days, though we call it passing, and suppress the Algarotti, Baltimore being indeed chief]. He is gone towards Hamburg, to take ship for England there. As I heard that my Most All-gracious Father wished I should show him courtesy, I have done for him what I could. The Prince of Mirow has also been here,"—our old Strelitz friend. Of Baltimore nothing more to Papa. But to another Correspondent, to the good Suhm (who is now at Petersburg, and much in our intimacy, ready to transact loans for us, translate Wolf, or do what is wanted), there is this passage next day:—

REINSBERG, 26th SEPTEMBER, 1739 (to Suhm). "We have had Milord Baltimore here, and the young Algarotti; both of them men who, by their accomplishments, cannot but conciliate the esteem and consideration of all who see them. We talked much of you [Suhm], of Philosophy, of Science, Art; in short, of all that can be included in the taste of cultivated people (HONNETES GENS)." [OEuvres de Frederic, xvi. 378.] And again to another, about two weeks hence:—

REINSBERG, 10th OCTOBER, 1739 (to Voltaire). "We have had Milord Baltimore and Algarotti here, who are going back to England. This Milord is a very sensible man (HOMME TRESSENSE); who possesses a great deal of knowledge, and thinks, like us, that sciences can be no disparagement to nobility, nor degrade an illustrious rank. I admired the genius of this ANGLAIS, as one does a fine face through a crape veil. He speaks French very ill, yet one likes to hear him speak it; and as for his English, he pronounces it so quick, there is no possibility of following him. He calls a Russian 'a mechanical animal.' He says 'Petersburg is the eye of Russia, with which it keeps civilized countries in sight; if you took this eye from it, Russia would fall again into barbarism, out of which it is just struggling.' [Ib. xxi. 326, 327.]... Young Algarotti, whom you know, pleased me beyond measure. He promised that he"—But Baltimore, promise or not, is the chief figure at present.

Evidently an original kind of figure to us, CET ANGLAIS. And indeed there is already finished a rhymed EPISTLE to Baltimore; Epitre sur la Liberte (copy goes in that same LETTER, for Voltaire's behoof), which dates itself likewise October 10th; beginning,—"L'esprit libre, Milord, qui regne en Angleterre," which, though it is full of fine sincere sentiments, about human dignity, papal superstition, Newton, Locke, and aspirations for progress of culture in Prussia, no reader could stand at this epoch.

What Baltimore said in answer to the EPITRE, we do not know; probably not much: it does not appear he ever saw or spoke to Friedrich a second time. Three weeks after, Friedrich writing to Algarotti, has these words: "I pray you make my friendships to Milord Baltimore, whose character and manner of thinking I truly esteem. I hope he has, by this time, got my EPITRE on the English Liberty of Thought." [29th October 1739, To Algarotti in London (OEuvres, xviii. 5).] And so Baltimore passes on, silent in History henceforth,—though Friedrich seems to have remembered him to late times, as a kind of type-figure when England came into his head. For the sake of this small transit over the sun's disk, I have made some inquiry about Baltimore; but found very little;—perhaps enough:—

"He was Charles, Sixth Lord Baltimore, it appears; Sixth, and last but one. First of the Baltimores, we know, was Secretary Calvert (1618-1624), who colonized Maryland; last of them (1774) was the Son of this Charles; something of a fool, to judge by the face of him in Portraits, and by some of his doings in the world. He, that Seventh Baltimore, printed one or two little Volumes "now of extreme rarity"—(cannot be too rare); and winded up by standing an ugly Trial at Kingston Assizes (plaintiff an unfortunate female). After which he retired to Naples, and there ended, 1774, the last of these Milords. [Walpole (by Park), Catalogue of Royal and Noble Authors (London, 1806), v. 278.]

"He of the Kingston Assizes, we say, was not this Charles; but his Son, whom let the reader forget. Charles, age forty at this time, had travelled about the Continent a good deal: once, long ago, we imagined we had got a glimpse of him (but it was a guess merely) lounging about Luneville and Lorraine, along with Lyttelton, in the Congress-of-Soissons time? Not long after that, it is certain enough, he got appointed a Gentleman of the Bedchamber to Prince Fred; who was a friend of speculative talkers and cultivated people. In which situation Charles Sixth Baron Baltimore continued all his days after; and might have risen by means of Fred, as he was anxious enough to do, had both of them lived; but they both died; Baltimore first, in 1751, a year before Fred. Bubb Doddington, diligent laborer in the same Fred vineyard, was much infested by this Baltimore,—who, drunk or sober (for he occasionally gets into liquor), is always putting out Bubb, and stands too well with our Royal Master, one secretly fears! Baltimore's finances, I can guess, were not in too good order; mostly an Absentee; Irish Estates not managed in the first style, while one is busy in the Fred vineyard! 'The best and honestest man in the world, with a good deal of jumbled knowledge,' Walpole calls him once: 'but not capable of conducting a party.'" [Walpole's Letters to Mann (London, 1843), ii. 175; 27th January, 1747. See ib. i. 82.] Oh no;—and died, at any rate, Spring 1751: [Peerage of Ireland (London, 1768), ii. 172-174.] and we will not mention him farther.

BIELFELD, WHAT HE SAW AT REINSBERG AND AROUND

Directly on the rear of these fine visitors, came, by invitation, a pair of the Korn's-Hotel people; Masonic friends; one of whom was Bielfeld, whose dainty Installation Speech and ways of procedure had been of promise to the Prince on that occasion. "Baron von Oberg" was the other:—Hanoverian Baron: the same who went into the Wars, and was a "General von Oberg" twenty years hence? The same or another, it does not much concern us. Nor does the visit much, or at all; except that Bielfeld, being of writing nature, professes to give ocular account of it. Honest transcript of what a human creature actually saw at Reinsberg, and in the Berlin environment at that date, would have had a value to mankind: but Bielfeld has adopted the fictitious form; and pretty much ruined for us any transcript there is. Exaggeration, gesticulation, fantastic uncertainty afflict the reader; and prevent comfortable belief, except where there is other evidence than Bielfeld's.

At Berlin the beautiful straight streets, Linden Avenues (perhaps a better sample than those of our day), were notable to Bielfeld; bridges, statues very fine; grand esplanades, and such military drilling and parading as was never seen. He had dinner-invitations, too, in quantity; likes this one and that (all in prudent asterisks),—-likes Truchsess von Waldburg very much, and his strange mode of bachelor housekeeping, and the way he dines and talks among his fellow-creatures, or sits studious among his Military Books and Paper-litters. But all is loose far-off sketching, in the style of Anacharsis the Younger; and makes no solid impression.

Getting to Reinsberg, to the Town, to the Schloss, he crosses the esplanade, the moat; sees what we know, beautiful square Mansion among its woods and waters;—and almost nothing that we do not know, except the way the moat-bridge is lighted: "Bridge furnished," he says, "with seven Statues representing the seven Planets, each holding in her hand a glass lamp in the form of a globe;"—which is a pretty object in the night-time. The House is now finished; Knobelsdorf rejoicing in his success; Pesne and others giving the last touch to some ceilings of a sublime nature. On the lintel of the gate is inscribed FREDERICO TRANQUILLITATEM COLENTI (To Friedrich courting Tranquillity). The gardens, walks, hermitages, grottos, are very spacious, fine: not yet completed,—perhaps will never be. A Temple of Bacchus is just now on hand, somewhere in those labyrinthic woods: "twelve gigantic Satyrs as caryatides, crowned by an inverted Punch-bowl for dome;" that is the ingenious Knobelsdorf's idea, pleasant to the mind. Knobelsdorf is of austere aspect; austere, yet benevolent and full of honest sagacity; the very picture of sound sense, thinks Bielfeld. M. Jordan is handsome, though of small stature; agreeable expression of face; eye extremely vivid; brown complexion, bushy eyebrows as well as beard are black. [Bielfeld (abridged), i. 45.]

Or did the reader ever hear of "M. Fredersdorf," Head Valet at this time? Fredersdorf will become, as it were, Privy-Purse, House-Friend, and domestic Factotum, and play a great part in coming years. "A tall handsome man;" much "silent sense, civility, dexterity;" something "magnificently clever in him," thinks Bielfeld (now, or else twenty years afterwards); whom we can believe. [Ib. p. 49.] He was a gift from General Schwerin, this Fredersdorf; once a Private in Schwerin's regiment, at Frankfurt-on-Oder,—excellent on the flute, for one quality. Schwerin, who had an eye for men, sent him to Friedrich, in the Custrin time; hoping he might suit in fluting and otherwise. Which he conspicuously did. Bielfeld's account, we must candidly say, appears to be an afterthought; but readers can make their profit of it, all the same.

As to the Crown-Prince and Princess, words fail to express their gracious perfections, their affabilities, polite ingenuities:—Bielfeld's words do give us some pleasant shadowy conceivability of the Crown-Princess:—

"Tall, and perfect in shape; bust such as a sculptor might copy; complexion of the finest; features ditto; nose, I confess, smallish and pointed, but excellent of that kind; hair of the supremest flaxen, 'shining' like a flood of sunbeams, when the powder is off it. A humane ingenuous Princess; little negligences in toilet or the like, if such occur, even these set her off, so ingenuous are they. Speaks little; but always to the purpose, in a simple, cheerful and wise way. Dances beautifully; heart (her soubrette assures me) is heavenly;—and 'perhaps no Princess living has a finer set of diamonds.'"

Of the Crown-Princess there is some pleasant shadow traced as on cobweb, to this effect. But of the Crown-Prince there is no forming the least conception from what he says:—this is mere cobweb with Nothing elaborately painted on it. Nor do the portraits of the others attract by their verisimilitude. Here is Colonel Keyserling, for instance; the witty Courlander, famous enough in the Friedrich circle; who went on embassy to Cirey, and much else: he "whirls in with uproar (FRACAS) like Boreas in the Ballet;" fowling-piece on shoulder, and in his "dressing-gown" withal, which is still stranger; snatches off Bielfeld, unknown till that moment, to sit by him while dressing; and there, with much capering, pirouetting, and indeed almost ground-and-lofty tumbling, for accompaniment, "talks of Horses, Mathematics, Painting, Architecture, Literature, and the Art of War," while he dresses. This gentleman was once Colonel in Friedrich Wilhelm's Army; is now fairly turned of forty, and has been in troubles: we hope he is not LIKE in the Bielfeld Portrait;—otherwise, how happy that we never had the honor of knowing him! Indeed, the Crown-Prince's Household generally, as Bielfeld paints it in flourishes of panegyric, is but unattractive; barren to the modern on-looker; partly the Painter's blame, we doubt not. He gives details about their mode of dining, taking coffee, doing concert;—and describes once an incidental drinking-bout got up aforethought by the Prince; which is probably in good part fiction, though not ill done. These fantastic sketchings, rigorously winnowed into the credible and actual, leave no great residue in that kind; but what little they do leave is of favorable and pleasant nature.

Bielfeld made a visit privately to Potsdam, too: saw the Giants drill; made acquaintance with important Captains of theirs (all in ASTERISKS) at Potsdam; with whom he dined, not in a too credible manner, and even danced. Among the asterisks, we easily pick out Captain Wartensleben (of the Korn's-Hotel operation), and Winterfeld, a still more important Captain, whom we saw dining on cold pie with his Majesty, at a barn-door in Pommern, not long since. Of the Giants, or their life at Potsdam, Bielfeld's word is not worth hearing,—worth suppressing rather; his knowledge being so small, and hung forth in so fantastic a way. This transient sight he had of his Majesty in person; this, which is worth something to us,—fact being evidently lodged in it, "After church-parade," Autumn Sunday afternoon (day uncertain, Bielfeld's date being fictitious, and even impossible), Majesty drove out to Wusterhausen, "where the quantities of game surpass all belief;" and Bielfeld had one glimpse of him:—

"I saw his Majesty only, as it were, in passing. If I may judge by his Portraits, he must have been of a perfect beauty in his young time; but it must be confessed there is nothing left of it now. His eyes truly are fine; but the glance of them is terrible: his complexion is composed of the strongest tints of red, blue, yellow, green,"—not a lovely complexion at all; "big head; the thick neck sunk between the shoulders; figure short and heavy (COURTE ET RAMASSEE)." [Bielfeld, p. 35.]

"Going out to Wusterhausen," then, that afternoon, "October, 1739." How his Majesty is crushed down; quite bulged out of shape in that sad way, by the weight of time and its pressures: his thoughts, too, most likely, of a heavy-laden and abstruse nature! The old Pfalz Controversy has misgone with him: Pfalz, and so much else in the world;—the world in whole, probably enough, near ending to him; the final shadows, sombre, grand and mournful, closing in upon him!

TURK WAR ENDS; SPANISH WAR BEGINS. A WEDDING IN PETERSBURG

Last news come to Potsdam in these days is, The Kaiser has ended his disastrous Turk War; been obliged to end it; sudden downbreak, and as it were panic terror, having at last come upon his unfortunate Generals in those parts. Duke Franz was passionate to be out of such a thing; Franz, General Neipperg and others; and now, "2d September, 1739," like lodgers leaping from a burning house, they are out of it. The Turk gets Belgrade itself, not to mention wide territories farther east,—Belgrade without shot fired;—nay the Turk was hardly to be kept from hanging the Imperial Messenger (a General Neipperg, Duke Franz's old Tutor, and chief Confidant, whom we shall hear more of elsewhere), whose passport was not quite right on this occasion!—Never was a more disgraceful Peace. But also never had been worse fighting; planless, changeful, powerless, melting into futility at every step:—not to be mended by imprisonments in Gratz, and still harsher treatment of individuals. "Has all success forsaken me, then, since Eugene died?" said the Kaiser; and snatched at this Turk Peace; glad to have it, by mediation of France, and on any terms.

Has not this Kaiser lost his outlying properties at a fearful rate? Naples is gone; Spanish Bourbon sits in our Naples; comparatively little left for us in Italy. And now the very Turk has beaten us small; insolently fillips the Imperial nose of us,—threatening to hang our Neipperg, and the like. Were it not for Anne of Russia, whose big horse-whip falls heavy on this Turk, he might almost get to Vienna again, for anything we could do! A Kaiser worthy to be pitied;—whom Friedrich Wilhelm, we perceive, does honestly pity. A Kaiser much beggared, much disgraced, in late years; who has played a huge life-game so long, diplomatizing, warring; and, except the Shadow of Pragmatic Sanction, has nothing to retire upon.