History of Friedrich II of Prussia — Volume 21

"It was this, I believe, which prevented one's observing that he was, in fact, like Homer's heroes, somewhat of a talker (UN PEU BABILLARD), though a sublime one. It is to their voices, their noise and gestures, that talkers often owe their reputation as such; for certainly one could not find a greater talker than the King; but one was delighted at his being so. Accustomed to talk to Marquis Lucchesini, in the presence of only four or five Generals who did not understand French, he compensated in this way for his hours of labor, of study, of meditation and solitude. At least, said I to myself, I must get in a word. He had just mentioned Virgil. I said:—

EGO. "'What a great Poet, Sire; but what a bad gardener!'

KING. "'Ah, to whom do you tell that! Have not I tried to plant, sow, till, dig, with the GEORGICS in my hand? "But, Monsieur," said my man, "you are a fool (BETE), and your Book no less; it is not in that way one goes to work." Ah, MON DIEU, what a climate! Would you believe it, Heaven, or the Sun, refuse me everything? Look at my poor orange-trees, my olive-trees, lemon-trees: they are all starving.'

EGO. "'It would appear, then, nothing but laurels flourish with you, Sire.' (The King gave me a charming look; and to cover an inane observation by an absurd one, I added quickly:) 'Besides, Sire, there are too many GRENADIERS [means, in French, POMEGRANATES as well as GRENADIERS,—peg of one's little joke!] in this Country; they eat up everything!' The King burst out laughing; for it is only absurdities that cause laughter.

"One day I had turned a plate to see of what, porcelain it was. 'Where do you think it comes from?' asked the King.

EGO. "'I thought it was Saxon; but, instead of two swords [the Saxon mark], I see only one, which is well worth both of them.'

KING. "'It is a sceptre.'

EGO. "'I beg your Majesty's pardon; but it is so much like a sword, that one could easily mistake it for one.' And such was really the case. This, it, is known, is the mark of the Berlin china. As the King sometimes PLAYED KING, and thought himself, sometimes, extremely magnificent while taking up a walking-stick or snuffbox with a few wretched little diamonds running after one another on it, I don't quite know whether he was infinitely pleased with my little allegory.

"One day, as I entered his room, he came towards me, saying, 'I tremble to announce bad news to you. I have just heard that Prince Karl of Lorraine is dying.' [Is already dead, "at Brussels, July 4th;" Duke of Sachsen-Teschen and Wife Christine succeeded him as Joint-Governors in those parts.] He looked at me to see the effect this would have; and observing some tears escaping from my eyes, he, by gentlest transitions, changed the conversation; talked of war, and of the Marechal de Lacy. He asked me news about Lacy; and said, 'That is a man of the greatest merit. In former time, Count Mercy among yourselves [killed, while commanding in chief, at the Battle of Parma in 1733], Puysegur among the French, had some notions of marches and encampments; one sees from Hyginus's Book [ancient Book] ON CASTRAMETATION, that the Greeks also were much occupied with the subject: but your Marechal surpasses the Ancients, the Moderns and all the most famous men who have meddled with it. Thus, whenever he was your Quartermaster-General, if you will permit me to make the remark to you, I did not gain the least advantage. Recollect the two Campaigns of 1758 and 1759; you succeeded in everything. I often said to myself, 'Shall I never get rid of that man, then?' You yourselves got me rid of him; and—[some liberal or even profuse eulogy of Lacy, who is De Ligne's friend; which we can omit].

"Next day the King, as soon as he saw me, came up; saying with the most penetrated air: 'If you are to learn the loss of a man who loved you, and who did honor to mankind, it will be better that it be from some one who feels it as deeply as I do. Poor Prince Karl is no more. Others, perhaps, are made to replace him in your heart; but few Princes will replace him with regard to the beauty of his soul and to all his virtues.' In saying this, his emotion became extreme. I said: 'Your Majesty's regrets are a consolation; and you did not wait for his death to speak well of him. There are fine verses with reference to him in the Poem, SUR L'ART DE LA GUERRE.' My emotion troubled me against my will; however, I repeated them to him.

    ["Soutien de mes rivaux, digne appui de ta reine,      Charles, d'un ennemi sourd aux cris de la haine      Recois l'eloge"...

(for crossing the Rhine in 1744): ten rather noble lines, still worth reading; as indeed the whole Poem well is, especially to soldier students (L'ART DE LA GUERRE, Chant vi.: OEuvres de Frederic, x. 273).] The Man of Letters seemed to appreciate my knowing them by heart.

KING. "'His passage of the Rhine was a very fine thing;—but the poor Prince depended upon so many people! I never depended upon anybody but myself; sometimes too much so for my luck. He was badly served, not too well obeyed: neither the one nor the other ever was the case with me.—Your General Nadasti appeared to me a great General of Cavalry?' Not sharing the King's opinion on this point, I contented myself with saying, that Nadasti was very brilliant, very fine at musketry, and that he could have led his hussars to the world's end and farther (DANS L'ENFER), so well did he know how to animate them.

KING. "'What has become of a brave Colonel who played the devil at Rossbach? Ah, it was the Marquis de Voghera, I think?—Yes, that's it; for I asked his name after the Battle.'

EGO. "'He is General of Cavalry.'

KING. "'PERDI! It needed a considerable stomach for fight, to charge like your Two Regiments of Cuirassiers there, and, I believe, your Hussars also: for the Battle was lost before it began.'

EGO. "'Apropos of M. de Voghera, is your Majesty aware of a little thing he did before charging? He is a boiling, restless, ever-eager kind of man; and has something of the good old Chivalry style. Seeing that his Regiment would not arrive quick enough, he galloped ahead of it; and coming up to the Commander of the Prussian Regiment of Cavalry which he meant to attack, he saluted him as on parade; the other returned the salute; and then, Have at each other like madmen.'

KING. "'A very good style it is! I should like to know that man; I would thank him for it.—Your General von Ried, then, had got the devil in him, that time at Eilenburg [spurt of fight there, in the Meissen regions, I think in Year 1758, when the D'Ahremberg Dragoons got so cut up], to let those brave Dragoons, who so long bore your Name with glory, advance between Three of my Columns?'—He had asked me the same question at the Camp of Neustadt ten years since; and in vain had I told him that it was not M. de Ried; that Ried did not command them at all; and that the fault was Marechal Daun's, who ought not to have sent them into that Wood of Eilenburg, still less ordered them to halt there without even sending a patrol forward. The King could not bear our General von Ried, who had much displeased him as Minister at Berlin; and it was his way to put down everything to the account of people he disliked.

KING. "'When I think of those devils of Saxon Camps [Summer, 1760],—they were unattackable citadels! If, at Torgau, M. de Lacy had still been Quartermaster-General, I should not have attempted to attack him. But there I saw at once the Camp was ill chosen.'

EGO. "'The superior reputation of Camps sometimes causes a desire to attempt them. For instance, I ask your Majesty's pardon, but I have always thought you would at last have attempted that of Plauen, had the War continued.'

KING. "'Oh, no, indeed! There was no way of taking that one.'

EGO. "'Does n't your Majesty think: With a good battery on the heights of Dolschen, which commanded us; with some battalions, ranked behind each other in the Ravine, attacking a quarter of an hour before daybreak [and so forth, at some length,—excellent for soldier readers who know the Plauen Chasm], you could have flung us out of that almost impregnable Place of Refuge?'

KING. "'And your battery on the Windberg, which would have scourged my poor battalions, all the while, in your Ravine?'

EGO. "'But, Sire, the night?'

KING. "'Oh, you could not miss us even by grope. That big hollow that goes from Burg, and even from Potschappel,—it would have poured like a water-spout [or fire-spout] over us. You see, I am not so brave as you think.'

"The Kaiser had set out for his Interview [First Interview, and indeed it is now more than half done, a good six weeks of it gone] with the Czarina of Russia. That Interview the King did not like [no wonder]:—and, to undo the good it had done us, he directly, and very unskilfully, sent the Prince Royal to Petersburg [who had not the least success there, loutish fellow, and was openly snubbed by a Czarina gone into new courses]. His Majesty already doubted that the Court of Russia was about to escape him:—and I was dying of fear lest, in the middle of all his kindnesses, he should remember that I was an Austrian. 'What,' said I to myself, 'not a single epigram on us, or on our Master? What a change!'

"One day, at dinner, babbling Pinto said to the person sitting next him, 'This Kaiser is a great traveller; there never was one who went so far.' 'I ask your pardon, Monsieur,' said the King; 'Charles Fifth went to Africa; he gained the Battle of Oran.' And, turning towards me,—who couldn't guess whether it was banter or only history,—'This time,' said he, 'the Kaiser is more fortunate than Charles Twelfth; like Charles, he entered Russia by Mohilow; but it appears to me he will arrive at Moscow.'

"The same Pinto, one day, understanding the King was at a loss whom to send as Foreign Minister some-whither, said to him: 'Why does not your Majesty think of sending Lucchesini, who is a man of much brilliancy (HOMME D'ESPRIT)?' 'It is for that very reason,' answered the King, 'that I want to keep him. I had rather send you than him, or a dull fellow like Monsieur—' I forget whom, but believe it is one whom he did appoint Minister somewhere.

"M. de Lucchesini, by the charm of his conversation, brought out that of the King's. He knew what topics were agreeable to the King; and then, he knew how to listen; which is not so easy as one thinks, and which no stupid man was ever capable of. He was as agreeable to everybody as to his Majesty, by his seductive manners and by the graces of his mind. Pinto, who had nothing to risk, permitted himself everything. Says he: 'Ask the Austrian General, Sire, all he saw me do when in the service of the Kaiser.'

EGO. "'A fire-work at my Wedding, was n't that it, my dear Pinto?'

KING (interrupting). "'Do me the honor to say whether it was successful?'

EGO. "'No, Sire; it even alarmed all my relations, who thought it a bad omen. Monsieur the Major here had struck out the idea of joining Two flaming Hearts, a very novel image of a married couple. But the groove they were to slide on, and meet, gave way: my Wife's heart went, and mine remained.'

KING. "'You see, Pinto, you were not good for much to those people, any more than to me.'

EGO. "'Oh, Sire, your Majesty, since then, owes him some compensation for the sabre-cuts he had on his head.'

KING. "'He gets but too much compensation. Pinto, did n't I send you yesterday some of my good Preussen honey?'

PINTO. "'Oh, surely;—it was to make the thing known. If your Majesty could bring that into vogue, and sell it all, you would be the greatest King in the world. For your Kingdom produces only that; but of that there is plenty.'

"'Do you know,' said the King, one day, to me,—'Do you know that the first soldiering I did was for the House of Austria? MON DIEU, how the time passes!'—He had a way of slowly bringing his hands together, in ejaculating these MON-DIEUS, which gave him quite a good-natured and extremely mild air.—(Do you know that I saw the glittering of the last rays of Prince Eugen's genius?'

EGO. "'Perhaps it was at these rays that your Majesty's genius lit itself.'

KING. "'EH, MON DIEU! who could equal the Prince Eugen?'

EGO. "'He who excels him;—for instance, he who could win Twelve Battles!'—He put on his modest air. I have always said, it is easy to be modest, if you are in funds. He seemed as though he had not understood me, and said:—

KING. "'When the cabal which, during forty years, the Prince had always had to struggle with in his Army, were plotting mischief on him, they used to take advantage of the evening time, when his spirits, brisk enough in the morning, were jaded by the fatigues of the day. It was thus they persuaded him to undertake his bad March on Mainz' [March not known to me].

EGO. "'Regarding yourself, Sire, and the Rhine Campaign, you teach me nothing. I know everything your Majesty did, and even what you said. I could relate to you your Journeys to Strasburg, to Holland, and what passed in a certain Boat. Apropos of this Rhine Campaign, one of our old Generals, whom I often set talking, as one reads an old Manuscript, has told me how astonished he was to see a young Prussian Officer, whom he did not know, answering a General of the late King, who had given out the order, Not to go a-foraging: "And I, Sir, I order you to go; our Army needs it; in short, I will have it so (JE LE VEUX)!—"'

KING. "'You look at me too much from the favorable side! Ask these Gentlemen about my humors and my caprices; they will tell you fine things of me.'

"We got talking of some Anecdotes which are consigned to, or concealed in, certain obscure Books. 'I have been much amused, said I to the King, (with the big cargo of Books, true or false, written by French Refugees, which perhaps are unknown in France itself.' [Discourses a little on this subject.]

KING. "'Where did you pick up all these fine old Pieces? These would amuse me on an evening; better than the conversation of my Doctor of the Sorbonne [one Peyrau, a wandering creature, not otherwise of the least interest to us], [Nicolai, Anekdoten, ii. 133 n.] whom I have here, and whom I am trying to convert.'

EGO. "'I found them all in a Bohemian Library, where I sat diverting myself for two Winters.'

KING. "'How, then? Two Winters in Bohemia? What the devil were you doing there! Is it long since?'

EGO. "'No, Sire; only a year or two [Potato-War time]! I had retired thither to read at my ease.'—He smiled, and seemed to appreciate my not mentioning the little War of 1778, and saving him any speech about it. He saw well enough that my Winter-quarters had been in Bohemia on that occasion; and was satisfied with my reticence. Being an old sorcerer, who guessed everything, and whose tact was the finest ever known, he discovered that I did not wish to tell him I found Berlin changed since I had last been there. I took care not to remind him that I was at the capturing of it in 1760, under M. de Lacy's orders [M. de Lacy's indeed!].—It was for having spoken of the first capture of Berlin, by Marshal Haddick [highly temporary as it was, and followed by Rossbach], that the King had taken a dislike to M. de Ried.

"Apropos of the Doctor of the Sorbonne [uninteresting Peyrau] with whom he daily disputed, the King said to me once, 'Get me a Bishopric for him.' 'I don't think,' answered I, (that my recommendation, or that of your Majesty, could be useful to him with us.' 'Ah, truly no!' said the King: 'Well, I will write to the Czarina of Russia for this poor devil; he does begin to bore me. He holds out as Jansenist, forsooth. MON DIEU, what blockheads the present Jansenists are! But France should not have extinguished that nursery (FOYER) of their genius, that Port Royal, extravagant as it was. Indeed, one ought to destroy nothing! Why have they destroyed, too, the Depositaries of the graces of Rome and of Athens, those excellent Professors of the Humanities, and perhaps of Humanity, the Ex-Jesuit Fathers? Education will be the loser by it. But as my Brothers the Kings, most Catholic, most Christian, most Faithful and Apostolic, have tumbled them out, I, most Heretical, pick up as many as I can; and perhaps, one day, I shall be courted for the sake of them by those who want some. I preserve the breed: I said, counting my stock the other day, "A Rector like you, my Father, I could easily sell for 300 thalers; you, Reverend Father Provincial, for 600; and so the rest, in proportion." When one is not rich, one makes speculations.'

"From want of memory, and of opportunities to see oftener and longer the Greatest Man that ever existed [Oh, MON PRINCE!], I am obliged to stop. There is not a word in all this but was his own; and those who have seen him will recognize his manner. All I want is, to make him known to those who have not had the happiness to see him. His eyes are too hard in the Portraits: by work in the Cabinet, and the hardships of War, they had become intense, and of piercing quality; but they softened finely in hearing, or telling, some trait of nobleness or sensibility. Till his death, and but quite shortly before it,—notwithstanding many levities which he knew I had allowed myself, both in speaking and writing, and which he surely attributed only to my duty as opposed to my interest,—he deigned to honor me with marks of his remembrance; and has often commissioned his Ministers, at Paris and at Vienna, to assure me of his good-will.

"I no longer believe in earthquakes and eclipses at Caesar's death, since there has been nothing of such at that of Friedrich the Great. I know not, Sire, whether great phenomena of Nature will announce the day when you shall cease to reign [great phenomena must be very idle if they do, your Highness!]—but it is a phenomenon in the world, that of a King who rules a Republic by making himself obeyed and respected for his own sake, as much as by his rights" (Hear, hear). [Prince de Ligne, Memoires et Melanges, i. 22-40.]

Prince de Ligne thereupon hurries off for Petersburg, and the final Section of his Kaiser's Visit. An errand of his own, too, the Prince had,—about his new Daughter-in-law Massalska, and claims of extensive Polish Properties belonging to her. He was the charm of Petersburg and the Czarina; but of the Massalska Properties could retrieve nothing whatever. The munificent Czarina gave him "a beautiful Territory in the Crim," instead; and invited him to come and see it with her, on his Kaiser's next Visit (1787, the aquatic Visit and the highly scenic). Which it is well known the Prince did; and has put on record, in his pleasant, not untrue, though vague, high-colored and fantastic way,—if it or he at all concerned us farther.

HOW GENERAL VON DER MARWITZ, IN EARLY BOYHOOD, SAW FRIEDRICH THE GREAT THREE TIMES (1782-1785)

General von der Marwitz, who died not many years ago, is of the old Marwitz kindred, several of whom we have known for their rugged honesties, genialities and peculiar ways. This General, it appears, had left a kind of Autobiography; which friends of his thought might be useful to the Prussian Public, after those Radical distractions which burst out in 1848 and onwards; and a first Volume of the MARWITZ POSTHUMOUS PAPERS was printed accordingly, [NACHLASS DES GENERAL VON DER MARWITZ (Berlin, 1852), 1 vol. 8vo.]—whether any more I have not heard; though I found this first Volume an excellent substantial bit of reading; and the Author a fine old Prussian Gentleman, very analogous in his structure to the fine old English ditto; who showed me the PER-CONTRA side of this and the other much-celebrated modern Prussian person and thing, Prince Hardenberg, Johannes von Muller and the like;—and yielded more especially the following Three Reminiscences of Friedrich, beautiful little Pictures, bathed in morning light, and evidently true to the life:—

1. JUNE, 1782 OR 1783. "The first time I saw him was in 1782 (or it might be 1783, in my sixth year)," middle of June, whichever year, "as he was returning from his Annual Review in Preussen [WEST-Preussen, never revisits the Konigsberg region], and stopped to change horses at Dolgelin." Dolgelin is in Mullrose Country, westward of Frankfurt-on-Oder; our Marwitz Schloss not far from it. "I had been sent with Mamsell Benezet," my French Governess; "and, along with the Clergyman of Dolgelin, we waited for the King.

"The King, on his journeys, generally preferred, whether at midday or for the night, to halt in some Country place, and at the Parsonages most of all; probably because he was quieter there than in the Towns. To the Clergyman this was always a piece of luck; not only because, if he pleased the King, he might chance to get promoted; but because he was sure of profitable payment, at any rate; the King always ordering 50 thalers [say 10 guineas] for his noon halt, and for his night's lodging 100. The little that the King ate was paid for over and above. It is true, his Suite expected to be well treated; but this consisted only of one or two individuals. Now, the King had been wont almost always, on these journeys homewards, to pass the last night of his expedition with the Clergyman of Dolgelin; and had done so last year, with this present one who was then just installed; with him, as with his predecessor, the King had talked kindly, and the 100 thalers were duly remembered. Our good Parson flattered himself, therefore, that this time too the same would happen; and he had made all preparations accordingly.

"So we waited there, and a crowd of people with us. The team of horses stood all ready (peasants' horses, poor little cats of things, but the best that could be picked, for there were then no post-horses THAT COULD RUN FAST);—the country-fellows that were to ride postilion all decked, and ten head of horses for the King's coach: wheelers, four, which the coachman drove from his box; then two successive pairs before, on each pair a postilion-peasant; and upon the third pair, foremost of all, the King's outriders were to go.

"And now, at last, came the FELDJAGER [Chacer, Hunting-groom], with his big whip, on a peasant's, horse, a peasant with him as attendant. All blazing with heat, he dismounted; said, The King would be here in five minutes; looked at the relays, and the fellows with the water-buckets, who were to splash the wheels; gulped down a quart of beer; and so, his saddle in the interim having been fixed on another horse, sprang up again, and off at a gallop. The King, then, was NOT to stay in Dolgelin! Soon came the Page, mounted in like style; a youth of 17 or 18; utterly exhausted; had to be lifted down from his horse, and again helped upon the fresh one, being scarcely able to stand;—and close on the rear of him arrived the King. He was sitting alone in an old-fashioned glass-coach, what they call a VIS-A-VIS (a narrow carriage, two seats fore and aft, and on each of them room for only one person). The coach was very long, like all the old carriages of that time; between the driver's box and the body of the coach was a space of at least four feet; the body itself was of pear-shape, peaked below and bellied out above; hung on straps, with rolled knuckles [WINDEN], did not rest on springs; two beams, connecting fore wheels and hind, ran not UNDER the body of the coach, but along the sides of it, the hind-wheels following with a goodly interval.

"The carriage drew up; and the King said to his coachman [the far-famed Pfund]: 'Is this Dolgelin?' 'Yes, your Majesty!'—'I stay here.' 'No,' said Pfund; 'The sun is not down yet. We can get on very well to Muncheberg to-night [ten miles ahead, and a Town too, perfidious Pfund!]—and then to-morrow we are much earlier in Potsdam.' 'NA, HM,—well, if it must be so!'—

"And therewith they set to changing horses. The peasants who were standing far off, quite silent, with reverently bared heads, came softly nearer, and looked eagerly at the King. An old Gingerbread-woman (SOMMELFRAU) of Lebbenichen [always knew her afterwards] took me in her arm, and held me aloft close to the coach-window. I was now at farthest an ell from the King; and I felt as if I were looking in the face of God Almighty (ES WAR MIR ALS OB ICH DEN LIEBEN GOTT ANSAHE). He was gazing steadily out before him," into the glowing West, "through the front window. He had on an old three-cornered regimental hat, and had put the hindward straight flap of it foremost, undoing the loop, so that this flap hung down in front, and screened him from the sun. The hat-strings (HUT-CORDONS," trimmings of silver or gold cord) "had got torn loose, and were fluttering about on this down-hanging front flap; the white feather in the hat was tattered and dirty; the plain blue uniform, with red cuffs, red collar and gold shoulder-bands [epaulettes WITHOUT bush at the end], was old and dusty, the yellow waistcoat covered with snuff;—for the rest, he had black-velvet breeches [and, of course, the perpetual BOOTS, of which he would allow no polishing or blacking, still less any change for new ones while they would hang together]. I thought always he would speak to me. The old woman could not long hold me up; and so she set me down again. Then the King looked at the Clergyman, beckoned him near, and asked, Whose child it was? (Herr von Marwitz of Friedersdorf's.)—'Is that the General?' 'No, the Chamberlain.' The King made no answer: he could not bear Chamberlains, whom he considered as idle fellows. The new horses were yoked; away they went. All day the peasants had been talking of the King, how he would bring this and that into order, and pull everybody over the coals who was not agreeable to them.