History of Frederick the Second

Chapter XXXV Life’s Closing Scenes

Character of the Crown Prince.—Stratagem of the Emperor Joseph II.—Death of the Empress Catharine of Russia.—Matrimonial Alliance of Russia and Prussia.—Death of the King of Bavaria.—Attempt to Annex Bavaria to Austria.—Unexpected Energy of Frederick.—Court Intrigues.—Preparations for War.—Address to the Troops.—Declaration of War.—Terror in Vienna.—Irritability of Frederick.—Death of Voltaire.—Unjust Condemnation of the Judges.—Death of Maria Theresa.—Anecdote.—The King’s Fondness for Children.—His Fault-finding Spirit.—The King’s Appearance.—The Last Review.—Statement of Mirabeau.—Anecdote related by Dr. Moore.—Frederick’s Fondness for Dogs.—Increasing Weakness. —Unchanging Obduracy toward the Queen.

—The Dying Scene.

Toward the end of the year 1775 the king had an unusually severe attack of the gout. It was erroneously reported that it was a dangerous attack of the dropsy, and that he was manifestly drawing near to his end. The Crown Prince, who was to succeed him, was a man of very little character. The Emperor of Germany, Joseph II., thought the death of Frederick would present him an opportunity of regaining Silesia for Austria. The Austrian army was immediately put in motion and hurried to the frontiers of Silesia, to seize the province the moment the king should expire. This was openly done, and noised abroad. Much to the disappointment of the emperor, the king got well. Amidst much ridicule, the troops returned to their old quarters.190

Frederick was probably not surprised at this act on the part of the emperor. He undoubtedly had sufficient candor to admit that it was exactly what he should have done under similar circumstances.

Catharine of Russia had a son, Paul, her heir to the throne. It so chanced that she died just at the time Prince Henry of Prussia was visiting St. Petersburg. Through his agency Paul was induced to take as a second wife a niece of Frederick’s, the eldest daughter of Eugene of Würtemberg. Thus the ties between Russia and Prussia were still more strengthened, so far as matrimonial alliances could strengthen them. The wedding took place in Berlin on the 18th of October, 1776.

Several years now passed away with nothing specially worthy of record. Frederick did not grow more amiable as he advanced in years. Though Frederick was often unreasonable, petulant, and unjust, and would seldom admit that he had been in the wrong, however clear the case, it can not be doubted that it was his general and earnest desire that justice should be exercised in all his courts.

In September, 1777, the King of Bavaria died. The emperor thought it a good opportunity to annex Bavaria to Austria. “Do but look on the map,” says Carlyle, in his peculiar style of thought and expression: “you would say, Austria without Bavaria is like a human figure with its belly belonging to somebody else. Bavaria is the trunk or belly of the Austrian dominions, shutting off all the limbs of them each from the other; making for central part a huge chasm.”

France would hardly object, since she was exhausted with long wars. England was busy in the struggle with her North American colonies. Russia was at war with the Turks. There was no power to be feared but Prussia.

“Frederick,” said Kaunitz, “is old and broken. He can not live long. Having suffered so much, he has an absolute horror of war. We need not fear that he will again put his armies in motion.”

But no sooner did Frederick get an intimation that Austria was contemplating this enlargement of her domains than he roused himself to prevent it with all the vigor of his earlier years. It was a very delicate matter; for Charles Theodore, the elector, and his nephew August Christian, heir to the electorate, a young gentleman of very illustrious pedigree, but of a very slender purse, had both been bribed by Austria secretly to co-operate in the movement. The reader will be interested in Carlyle’s account, slightly abbreviated, of Frederick’s skill in diplomacy:

“Heir is a gallant enough young gentleman. Frederick judges that he probably will have haggled to sign any Austrian convention for dismemberment of Baiern, and that he will start into life upon it so soon as he sees hope.

“‘A messenger to him,’ thinks Frederick; ‘a messenger instantly; and who?’ For that clearly is the first thing. And a delicate thing it is; requiring to be done in profoundest secrecy, by hint and innuendo rather than speech—by somebody in a cloak of darkness, who is of adroit quality, and was never heard of in diplomatic circles before, not to be suspected of having business of mine on hand.

“Frederick bethinks him that in a late visit to Weimar he had noticed, for his fine qualities, a young gentleman named Görtz, late tutor to the young Duke Karl August, a wise, firm, adroit-looking young gentleman, who was farther interesting as brother to Lieutenant General Von Görtz, a respectable soldier of Frederick’s. Ex-tutor at Weimar, we say, and idle for the moment; hanging about court there, till he should find a new function.

“Of this ex-tutor Frederick bethinks him; and in the course of that same day—for there is no delay—Frederick, who is at Berlin, beckons General Görtz to come over to him from Potsdam instantly.

“‘Hither this evening, and in all privacy meet me in the palace at such an hour’ (hour of midnight or thereby); which of course Görtz, duly invisible to mankind, does. Frederick explains: an errand to München; perfectly secret, for the moment, and requiring great delicacy and address; perhaps not without risk, a timorous man might say: will your brother go for me, think you? Görtz thinks he will.

“‘Here is his instruction, if so,’ adds the king, handing him an autograph of the necessary outline of procedure—not signed, nor with any credential, or even specific address, lest accident happen. ‘Adieu, then, herr general lieutenant; rule is, shoes of swiftness, cloak of darkness: adieu!’

“And Görtz senior is off on the instant, careering toward Weimar, where he finds Görtz junior, and makes known his errand. Görtz junior stares in the natural astonishment; but, after some intense brief deliberation, becomes affirmative, and in a minimum of time is ready and on the road.

“Görtz junior proved to have been an excellent choice on the king’s part, and came to good promotion afterward by his conduct in this affair. Görtz junior started for München on the instant, masked utterly, or his business masked, from profane eyes; saw this person, saw that, and glided swiftly about, swiftly and with sure aim; and speedily kindled the matter, and had smoke rising in various points. And before January was out, saw the Reisch-Diet, at Regensburg, much more the general gazetteerage every where, seized of this affair, and thrown into paroxysms at the size and complexion of it: saw, in fact, a world getting into flame—kindled by whom or what nobody could guess for a long time to come. Görtz had great running about in his cloak of darkness, and showed abundant talent of the kind needed. A pushing, clear-eyed, stout-hearted man; much cleverness and sureness in what he did and forebore to do. His adventures were manifold; he had much traveling about: was at Regensburg, at Mannheim; saw many persons whom he had to judge of on the instant, and speak frankly to, or speak darkly, or speak nothing; and he made no mistake.

“We can not afford the least narrative of Görtz and his courses: imagination, from a few traits, will sufficiently conceive them. He had gone first to Karl Theodor’s minister: ‘Dead to it, I fear; has already signed?’ Alas! yes. Upon which to Zweibrück, the heir’s minister, whom his master had distinctly ordered to sign, but who, at his own peril, gallant man, delayed, remonstrated, had not yet done it; and was able to answer:

“‘Alive to it, he? Yes, with a witness, were there hope in the world!’ which threw Görtz upon instant gallop toward Zweibrück Schloss in search of said heir, the young Duke August Christian; who, however, had left in the interim (summoned by his uncle, on Austrian urgency, to consent along with him), but whom Görtz, by dexterity and intuition of symptoms, caught up by the road, with what a mutual joy! As had been expected, August Christian, on sight of Görtz, with an armed Frederick looming in the distance, took at once into new courses and activities. From him no consent now; far other: treaty with Frederick; flat refusal ever to consent: application to the Reich, application even to France, and whatever a gallant young fellow could do.

“Frederick was in very weak health in these months; still considered by the gazetteers to be dying. But it appears he is not yet too weak for taking, on the instant necessary, a world-important resolution; and of being on the road with it, to this issue or to that, at full speed before the day closed. ‘Desist, good neighbor, I beseech you. You must desist, and even you shall:’ this resolution was entirely his own, as were the equally prompt arrangements he contrived for executing it, should hard come to hard, and Austria prefer war to doing justice.”191

While pushing these intrigues of diplomacy, Frederick was equally busy in marshaling his armies, that the sword might contribute its energies to the enforcement of his demands. One hundred thousand troops were assembled in Berlin, in the highest state of discipline and equipment, ready to march at a moment’s warning.

On Sunday, April 5, 1778, Frederick reviewed these troops, and addressed his officers in a speech, which was published in the newspapers to inform Austria what she had to expect. Eager as Frederick was to enlarge his own dominions, he was by no means disposed to grant the same privilege to other and rival nations. The address of Frederick to his officers was in reality a declaration to the Austrian court.

“Gentlemen,” said Frederick, “I have assembled you here for a public object. Most of you, like myself, have often been in arms with one another, and are grown gray in the service of our country. To all of us is well known in what dangers, toils, and renown we have been fellow-sharers. I doubt not in the least that all of you, as myself, have a horror of bloodshed; but the danger which now threatens our countries not only renders it a duty, but puts us in the absolute necessity, to adopt the quickest and most effectual means for dissipating at the right time the storm which threatens to break out upon us.

“I depend with complete confidence on your soldierly and patriotic zeal, which is already well and gloriously known to me, and which, while I live, I will acknowledge with the heartiest satisfaction. Before all things I recommend to you, and prescribe as your most sacred duty, that in every situation you exercise humanity on unarmed enemies. In this respect, let there be the strictest discipline kept among those under you.

“To travel with the pomp of a king is not among my wishes, and all of you are aware that I have no pleasure in rich field-furniture; but my increasing age, and the weakness it brings, render me incapable of riding as I did in my youth. I shall, therefore, be obliged to make use of a post-chaise in times of marching, and all of you have liberty to do the same. But on the day of battle you shall see me on horseback; and there, also, I hope my generals will follow that example.”

Kaunitz, the Austrian prime minister, was by no means prepared for this decisive action. In less than a week Frederick had one hundred thousand soldiers on the frontiers. Austria had not ten thousand there to meet them. Kaunitz, quite alarmed, assumed a supplicatory tone, and called for negotiation.

“Must there be war?” he said. “I am your majesty’s friend. Can we not, in mutual concession, find agreement?”

The result was a congress of three persons, two Prussians and one Austrian, which congress met at Berlin on the 24th of May, 1778. For two months they deliberated. The Austrians improved the delay in making very vigorous preparations for war. Frederick really wished to avoid the war, for he had seen enough of the woes of battle. They could come to no agreement.

On the 3d of July Frederick issued his declaration of war. On that very day his solid battalions, one hundred thousand strong, with menacing banners and defiant bugle-notes, crossed the border, and encamped on Bohemian ground. At the same moment, the king’s brother, Prince Henry, with another army of one hundred thousand men, commenced a march from the west to co-operate in an impetuous rush upon Vienna. These tidings caused the utmost consternation in the Austrian capital. An eye-witness writes:

“The terror in Vienna was dreadful. I will not attempt to describe the dismay the tidings excited among all ranks of people. Maria Theresa, trembling for her two sons who were in the army, immediately dispatched an autograph letter to Frederick with new proposals for a negotiation.”

Frederick had not grown old gracefully. He was domineering, soured, and irritable, finding fault with every body and every thing. As his troops were getting into camp at Jaromirtz on the 8th of July, the king, weary with riding, threw himself upon the ground for a little rest, his adjutants being near him. A young officer was riding by. Frederick beckoned to him, and wrote, with his pencil, an order of not the slightest importance, and said to the officer, aloud, in the hearing of all, purposely to wound their feelings,

“Here, take that order to General Lossow, and tell him that he is not to take it ill that I trouble him, as I have none in my suite that can do any thing.” It often seemed to give Frederick pleasure, and never pain, to wound the feelings of others.

“On arriving with his column,” writes General Schmettau, “where the officer—a perfectly skillful man—had marked out the camp, the king would lift his spy-glass, gaze to right and left, riding round the place at perhaps a hundred yards distance, and begin, ‘Look here, sir, what a botching you have made of it again!’

“And then, grumbling and blaming, would alter the camp till it was all out of rule, and then say,

“‘See there; that is the way to mark out camps.’”192

Through the efforts of Maria Theresa there was another brief conference, but it amounted to nothing. Neither party wished for war. But Austria craved the annexation of Bavaria, and Frederick was determined that Austria should not thus be enlarged. Thus the summer passed away in unavailing diplomacy and in equally unavailing military manœuvrings. While engaged in these adventures, Frederick received the tidings of the death of Voltaire, who breathed his last on the 20th of May, 1778. The soul of Frederick was too much seared by life’s stern conflicts to allow him to manifest, or probably to feel, any emotion on the occasion. He, however, wrote a eulogy upon the renowned littérateur, which, though written by a royal pen, attracted but little attention.

During the winter Russia and France interposed in behalf of peace. The belligerents agreed to submit the question to their decision. Austria was permitted to take a small slice of Bavaria, and for a time the horrors of war were averted.

Soon after this an event occurred very characteristic of the king—an event which conspicuously displayed both his good and bad qualities. A miller was engaged in a lawsuit against a nobleman. The decree of the court, after a very careful examination, was unanimously in favor of the nobleman; the king, who had impulsively formed a different opinion of the case, was greatly exasperated. He summoned the four judges before him, denounced them in the severest terms of vituperation, would listen to no defense, and dismissed them angrily from office.

“May a miller,” he exclaimed, fiercely, “who has no water, and consequently can not grind, have his mill taken from him? Is that just? Here is a nobleman wishing to make a fish-pond. To get more water for his pond, he has a ditch dug to draw into it a small stream which drives a water-mill. Thereby the miller loses his water, and can not grind. Yet, in spite of this, it is pretended that the miller shall pay his rent, quite the same as at the time when he had full water for his mill. Of course he can not pay his rent. His incomings are gone.

“And what does the court of Cüstrin do? It orders the mill to be sold, that the nobleman may have his rent! Go you, sir,” addressing the grand chancellor, “about your business, this instant. Your successor is appointed; with you I have nothing more to do.” The other three were assailed in the same way, but still more vehemently, as the king’s wrath flamed higher and higher. “Out of my sight,” he exclaimed at last; “I will make an example of you which shall be remembered.”

The next day, December 11, 1779, the king issued the following protocol in the newspapers:

“The king’s desire always was and is that every body, be he high or low, rich or poor, get prompt justice. Wherefore, in respect to this most unjust sentence against the miller Arnold, pronounced in the Neumark, and confirmed here in Berlin, his majesty will establish an emphatic example, to the end that all the courts of justice in the king’s provinces may take warning thereby, and not commit the like glaring unjust acts. For let them bear in mind that the least peasant, yea, what is still more, that even a beggar, is, no less than his majesty, a human being, and one to whom due justice must be meted out. All men being equal before the law, if it is a prince complaining against a peasant, or vice versa, the prince is the same as the peasant before the law.

“Let the courts take this for their rule; and whenever they do not carry out justice in a straightforward manner, without any regard of person and rank, they shall have to answer to his majesty for it.”

The discarded judges were arrested, imprisoned for a year, and fined a sum of money equal to the supposed loss of the miller. In this case the judges had heard both sides of the question, and the king but one side. The question had been justly decided. The case was so clear that the new judges appointed by the king, being conscientious men, could not refrain from sustaining the verdict. Still the king, who would never admit that he was in the wrong, ordered no redress for those who had thus suffered for righteousness sake. After Frederick’s death the court compelled the miller to refund the money which had been so unjustly extorted for damages.

On the 29th of November, 1780, Maria Theresa died. The extraordinary character which she had developed through life was equally manifested in the hour of death. She died of congestion of the lungs, which created a painful and suffocating difficulty of breathing. Her struggles for breath rendered it impossible for her to lie upon the bed. Bolstered in her chair, she leaned her head back as if inclined to sleep.

“Will your majesty sleep, then?” inquired an attendant.

“No,” the empress replied; “I could sleep, but I must not. Death is too near. He must not steal upon me. These fifteen years I have been making ready for him; I will meet him awake.”

For fifteen years she had been a mourning widow. Her husband had died on the 18th of August. The 18th day of every month had since then been a day of solitary prayer. On the 18th of every August she descended into the tomb, and sat for a season engaged in prayer by the side of the mouldering remains of her spouse.

The Emperor Joseph had been embarrassed in his ambitious plans by the conscientious scruples of his mother. He now entered into a secret alliance with the Czarina Catharine, by which he engaged to assist her in her advance to Constantinople, while she, in her turn, was to aid him in his encroachments and annexations to establish an empire in the West as magnificent as the czarina hoped to establish in the East.

Delighted with this plan, and sanguine in the hope of its successful accomplishment, the czarina named her next grandson Constantine. Austria and Russia thus became allied, with all their sympathies hostile to Frederick. Old age and infirmities were stealing upon the king apace. Among the well-authenticated anecdotes related of him, the following is given by Carlyle:

“Loss of time was one of the losses Frederick could least stand. In visits, even from his brothers and sisters, which were always by his own express invitation, he would say some morning (call it Tuesday morning), ‘You are going on Wednesday, I am sorry to hear’ (what you never heard before). ‘Alas! your majesty, we must.’ ‘Well, I am sorry; but I will lay no constraint on you. Pleasant moments can not last forever.’ This trait is in the anecdote-books; but its authenticity does not rest on that uncertain basis. Singularly enough, it comes to me individually, by two clear stages, from Frederick’s sister, the Duchess of Brunswick, who, if any body, would know it well.”

We have often spoken of the entire neglect with which the king treated his virtuous and amiable queen. Preuss relates the following incident:

“When the king, after the Seven Years’ War, now and then in carnival season dined with the queen in her apartments, he usually said not a word to her. He merely, on entering, on sitting down at table, and leaving it, made the customary bows, and sat opposite to her. Once the queen was ill of gout. The table was in her apartments, but she was not there. She sat in an easy-chair in the drawing-room. On this occasion the king stepped up to the queen and inquired about her health. The circumstance occasioned among the company present, and all over the town, as the news spread, great wonder and sympathy. This is probably the last time he ever spoke to her.”193

“The king was fond of children; he liked to have his grand-nephews about him. One day, while the king sat at work in his cabinet, the younger of the two, a boy of eight or nine, was playing ball about the room, and knocked it once and again into the king’s writing operation, who twice or oftener flung it back to him, but next time put it in his pocket, and went on. ‘Please your majesty, give it me back,’ begged the boy, and again begged: majesty took no notice; continued writing. Till at length came, in the tone of indignation, ‘Will your majesty give me my ball, then?’ The king looked up; found the little Hohenzollern planted firm, hands on haunches, and wearing quite a peremptory air. ‘Thou art a brave little fellow. They won’t get Silesia out of thee?’ cried he, laughing, and flinging him his ball.”194

The fault-finding character of the king, and his intense devotion to perfecting his army, both increased with his advancing years. After one of his reviews of the troops in Silesia, in the year 1784, he wrote in the following severe strain to the commanding general:

“Potsdam, September 7, 1784.

“My dear General,—While in Silesia I mentioned to you, and will now repeat in writing, that my army in Silesia was at no time so bad as at present. Were I to make shoemakers or tailors into generals, the regiments could not be worse. Regiment Thadden is not fit to be the most insignificant militia battalion of a Prussian army. Of the regiment Erlach, the men are so spoiled by smuggling they have no resemblance to soldiers; Keller is like a heap of undrilled boors; Hager has a miserable commander; and your own regiment is very mediocre. Only with Graf Von Anhalt, with Wendessen, and Markgraf Heinrich could I be content. See you, that is the state I found the regiments in, one after one. I will now speak of their manœuvring.

“Schwartz, at Neisse, made the unpardonable mistake of not sufficiently besetting the height on the left wing; had it been serious, the battle had been lost. At Breslau, Erlach, instead of covering the army by seizing the heights, marched off with his division straight as a row of cabbages into that defile; whereby, had it been earnest, the enemy’s cavalry would have cut down our infantry, and the fight was gone.

“It is not my purpose to lose battles by the base conduct of my generals; wherefore I hereby appoint that you, next year, if I be alive, assemble the army between Breslau and Ohlau; for four days before I arrive in your camp, carefully manœuvre with the ignorant generals, and teach them what their duty is. Regiment Von Arnim and regiment Von Kanitz are to act the enemy; and whoever does not then fulfill his duty shall go to court-martial; for I should think it a shame of any country to keep such people, who trouble themselves so little about their business.”

The king seemed to think it effeminate and a disgrace to him as a soldier ever to appear in a carriage. He never drove, but constantly rode from Berlin to Potsdam. In the winter of 1785, when he was quite feeble, he wished to go from Sans Souci, which was exposed to bleak winds, and where they had only hearth fires, to more comfortable winter quarters in the new palace. The weather was stormy. After waiting a few days for such a change as would enable him to go on horseback, and the cold and wind increasing, he was taken over in a sedan-chair in the night, when no one could see him.

In August, 1785, the king again visited Silesia to review his troops. A private letter, quoted by Carlyle, gives an interesting view of his appearance at the time:

“He passed through Hirschberg on the 18th of August. A concourse of many thousands had been waiting for him several hours. Outriders came at last; then he himself, the unique; and, with the liveliest expression of reverence and love, all eyes were directed on one point. I can not describe to you my feelings, which, of course, were those of every body, to see him, the aged king; in his weak hand the hat; in those grand eyes such a fatherly benignity of look over the vast crowd that encircled his carriage, and rolled tide-like, accompanying it. Looking round, I saw in various eyes a tear trembling.

“His affability, his kindliness, to whoever had the honor of speech with this great king, who shall describe it! After talking a good while with the merchants’ deputation from the hill country, he said, ‘Is there any thing more, then, from any body?’ Upon which the president stepped forward and said, ‘The burned-out inhabitants of Greiffenberg have charged me to express once more their most submissive gratitude for the gracious help in rebuilding; their word of thanks is indeed of no importance; but they daily pray God to reward such royal beneficence.’ The king was visibly affected, and said, ‘You don’t need to thank me; when my subjects fall into misfortune, it is my duty to help them up again; for that reason am I here.’”

On Monday, the 22d of August, the great review commenced near Strehlen. It lasted four days. All the country mansions around were filled with strangers who had come to witness the spectacle.

“The sure fact, and the forever memorable, is that on Wednesday, the third day of it, from four in the morning, when the manœuvres began, till well after ten o’clock, when they ended, there was rain like Noah’s; rain falling as from buckets and water-spouts; and that Frederick, so intent upon his business, paid not the slightest regard to it, but rode about, intensely inspecting, in lynx-eyed watchfulness of every thing, as if no rain had been there. Was not at the pains even to put on his cloak. Six hours of such down-pour; and a weakly old man of seventy-three past! Of course he was wetted to the bone. On returning to head-quarters, his boots were found full of water; ‘when pulled off, it came pouring from them like a pair of pails.’”195

Lafayette, Lord Cornwallis, and the Duke of York were his guests at the dinner-table that day. The king suffered from his exposure, was very feverish, and at an early hour went to bed. The next day he completed his review; and the next day “went—round by Neisse, inspection not to be omitted there, though it doubles the distance—to Brieg, a drive of eighty miles, inspection work included.”196

From this exhausting journey for so old a man the king returned to Potsdam through a series of state dinners, balls, and illuminations. On the night of the 18th of September he was awoke by a very severe fit of suffocation. It was some time before he could get any relief, and it was thought that he was dying. The next day gout set in severely. This was followed by dropsy. The king suffered severely through the winter. There is no royal road through the sick-chamber to the tomb. The weary months of pain and languor came and went. The renowned Mirabeau visited the king in his sick-chamber on the 17th of April, 1786. He writes:

“My dialogue with the king was very lively; but the king was in such suffering, and so straitened for breath, I was myself anxious to shorten it. That same evening I traveled on.”

That same evening Marie Antoinette wrote from Versailles to her sister Christine at Brussels:

“The King of Prussia is thought to be dying. I am weary of the political discussions on this subject as to what effects his death must produce. He is better at this moment, but so weak he can not resist long. Physique is gone. But his force and energy of soul, they say, have often supported him, and in desperate crises have even seemed to increase. Liking to him I never had. His ostentatious immorality has much hurt public virtue, and there have been related to me barbarities which excite horror.

“He has done us all a great deal of ill. He has been king for his own country, but a trouble-feast for those about him—setting up to be the arbiter of Europe, always assailing his neighbors, and making them pay the expense. As daughters of Maria Theresa, it is impossible we can regret him; nor is it the court of France that will make his funeral oration.”197

The Prince of Ligne, a very accomplished courtier, about this time visited the sick and dying king. During his brief stay he dined daily with the king, and spent his evenings with him. In an interesting account which he gives of these interviews, he writes:

“Daily for five hours the universality of his conversation completed my enchantment at his powers. The arts, war, medicine, literature, religion, philosophy, morality, history, and legislation passed in review by turns. The great times of Augustus and Louis XIV.; the good society among the Romans, the Greeks, and the French; the chivalry of Francis I.; the valor of Henry IV.; the revival of letters, and their changes since Leo X.; anecdotes of men of talent of former days, and their errors; the eccentricities of Voltaire; the sensitive vanity of Maupertuis; the agreeableness of Algarotti; the wit of Jordan; the hypochondriacism of the Marquis D’Argens, whom the king used to induce to keep his bed for four-and-twenty hours by merely telling him he looked ill—and what not besides? All that could be said of the most varied and agreeable kind was what came from him, in a gentle tone of voice, rather low, and very agreeable from his manner of moving his lips, which possessed an inexpressible grace.”198

Dr. Moore gives the following account of a surprising scene, considering that the king was an infirm and suffering man seventy-three years of age:

“A few days ago I happened to take a very early walk about a mile from Potsdam, and seeing some soldiers under arms in a field at a small distance from the road, I went toward them. An officer on horseback, whom I took to be the major, for he gave the word of command, was uncommonly active, and often rode among the ranks to reprimand or instruct the common men. When I came nearer I was much surprised to find that this was the king himself.

“He had his sword drawn, and continued to exercise the corps for an hour after. He made them wheel, march, form the square, and fire by divisions and in platoons, observing all their motions with infinite attention; and, on account of some blunder, put two officers of the Prince of Prussia’s regiment in arrest. In short, he seemed to exert himself with all the spirit of a young officer eager to attract the notice of his general by uncommon alertness.”199

Frederick was very fond of dogs. This was one of his earliest passions, and it continued until the end of his life. He almost invariably had five or six Italian greyhounds about him, leaping upon the chairs, and sleeping upon the sofas in his room. Dr. Zimmermann describes them as placed on blue satin chairs and couches near the king’s arm-chair, and says that when Frederick, during his last illness, used to sit on his terrace at Sans Souci in order to enjoy the sun, a chair was always placed by his side, which was occupied by one of his dogs. He fed them himself, took the greatest possible care of them when they were sick, and when they died buried them in the gardens of Sans Souci. The traveler may still see their tombs—flat stones with the names of the dogs beneath engraved upon them—at each end of the terrace of Sans Souci, in front of the palace.

“The king was accustomed to pass his leisure moments in playing with them, and the room where he sat was strewed with leather balls with which they amused themselves. As they were all much indulged, though there was always one especial favorite, they used to tear the damask covers of the chairs in the king’s apartment, and gnaw and otherwise injure the furniture. This he permitted without rebuke, and used only to say,

“‘My dogs destroy my chairs; but how can I help it? And if I were to have them mended to-day, they would be torn again to-morrow. So I suppose I must bear with the inconvenience. After all, a Marquise De Pompadour would cost me a great deal more, and would neither be as attached nor as faithful.’”

One of Frederick’s dogs, Biche, has attained almost historic celebrity. We can not vouch for the authenticity of the anecdote, but it is stated that the king took Biche with him on the campaign of 1745. One day the king, advancing on a reconnoissance, was surprised and pursued by a large number of Austrians. He took refuge under a bridge, and, wrapping Biche in his cloak, held him close to his breast. The sagacious animal seemed fully conscious of the peril of his master. Though of a very nervous temperament, and generally noisy and disposed to bark at the slightest disturbance, he remained perfectly quiet until the Austrians had passed.

At the battle of Sohr, Biche was taken captive with the king’s baggage. The animal manifested so much joy upon being restored to its master that the king’s eyes were flooded with tears.

On the 4th of July the king rode out for the last time. Not long after, the horse was again brought to the door, but the king found himself too weak to mount. Still, while in this state of extreme debility and pain, he conducted the affairs of state with the most extraordinary energy and precision. The minutest questions received his attention, and every branch of business was prosecuted with as much care and perfection as in his best days.

“He saw his ministers, saw all who had business with him, many who had little; and in the sore coil of bodily miseries, as Hertzberg observed with wonder, never was the king’s intellect clearer, or his judgment more just and decisive. Of his disease, except to the doctors, he spoke no word to any body.

“The body of Frederick is a ruin, but his soul is still here, and receives his friends and his tasks as formerly. Asthma, dropsy, erysipelas, continual want of sleep; for many months past he has not been in bed, but sits day and night in an easy-chair, unable to get breath except in that posture. He said one morning to somebody entering, ‘If you happened to want a night-watcher, I could suit you well.’”200

There is something truly sublime in the devotion with which he, in disregard of sleeplessness, exhaustion, and pain, gave himself to work. His three clerks were summoned to his room each morning at four o’clock.

“My situation forces me,” he said, “to give them this trouble, which they will not have to suffer long. My life is on the decline. The time which I still have belongs not to me, but to the state.”

He conversed cheerfully upon literature, history, and the common topics of the day. But he seemed studiously to avoid any allusion to God, to the subject of religion, or to death. He had from his early days very emphatically expressed his disbelief in any God who took an interest in the affairs of men. Throughout his whole life he had abstained from any recognition of such a God by any known acts of prayer or worship. Still Mr. Carlyle writes:

“From of old, life has been infinitely contemptible to him. In death, I think, he has neither fear nor hope. Atheism, truly, he never could abide: to him, as to all of us, it was flatly inconceivable that intellect, moral emotion, could have been put into him by an Entity that had none of its own. But there, pretty much, his Theism seems to have stopped. Instinctively; too, he believed, no man more firmly, that Right alone has ultimately any strength in this world: ultimately, yes; but for him and his poor brief interests, what good was it? Hope for himself in divine Justice, in divine Providence, I think he had not practically any: that the unfathomable Demiurgus should concern himself with such a set of paltry, ill-given animalcules as one’s self and mankind are, this also, as we have often noticed, is in the main incredible to him.

“Inarticulate notions, fancies, transient aspirations, he might have, in the background of his mind. One day, sitting for a while out of doors, gazing into the sun, he was heard to murmur, ‘Perhaps I shall be nearer thee soon;’ and, indeed, nobody knows what his thoughts were in these final months. There is traceable only a complete superiority to fear and hope; in parts, too, are half glimpses of a great motionless interior lake of sorrow, sadder than any tears or complainings, which are altogether wanting to it.”

Dr. Zimmermann, whose work on Solitude had given him some renown, had been sent for to administer to the illustrious patient. His prescriptions were of no avail. On the 10th of August, 1786, Frederick wrote to his sister, the Duchess Dowager of Brunswick:

“My adorable Sister,—The Hanover doctor has wished to make himself important with you, my good sister; but the truth is, he has been of no use to me. The old must give place to the young, that each generation may find room clear for it; and life, if we examine strictly what its course is, consists in seeing one’s fellow-creatures die and be born. In the mean while, I have felt myself a little easier for the last day or two. My heart remains inviolably attached to you, my good sister. With the highest consideration, my adorable sister, your faithful brother and servant,

Frederick.”

The last letter which it is supposed that he wrote was the following cold epistle to his excellent wife, whom, through a long life, he had treated with such cruel neglect:

“Madam,—I am much obliged by the wishes you deign to form; but a heavy fever I have taken hinders me from answering you.”

Scarcely any thing can be more sad than the record of the last days and hours of this extraordinary man. Few of the children of Adam have passed a more joyless life. Few have gone down to a grave shrouded with deeper gloom. None of those Christian hopes which so often alleviate pain, and take from death its sting, cheered his dying chamber. To him the grave was but the portal to the abyss of annihilation.

Days of pain and nights of sleeplessness were his portion. A hard cough racked his frame. His strength failed him. Ulcerous sores broke out upon various parts of his body. A constant oppression at his chest rendered it impossible for him to lie down. Gout tortured him. His passage to the grave led through eighteen months of constant suffering. Dr. Zimmermann, in his diary of the 2d of August, writes:

“The king is very chilly, and is always enveloped in pelisses, and covered with feather-beds. He has not been in bed for six weeks, but sleeps in his chair for a considerable time together, and always turned to the right side. The dropsical swelling augments. He sees it, but will not perceive what it is, or at least will not appear to do so, but talks as if it were a swelling accompanying convalescence, and proceeding from previous weakness. He is determined not to die if violent remedies can save him, but to submit to punctures and incisions to draw off the water.”

Again, on the 8th, Dr. Zimmermann wrote: “The king is extraordinarily ill. On the 4th erysipelas appeared on the leg. This announces bursting and mortification. He has much oppression, and the smell of the wound is very bad.”

On the 15th, after a restless night, he did not wake until eleven o’clock in the morning. For a short time he seemed confused. He then summoned his generals and secretaries, and gave his orders with all his wonted precision. He then called in his three clerks and dictated to them upon various subjects. His directions to an embassador, who was about leaving, filled four quarto pages.

As night came on he fell into what may be called the death-sleep. His breathing was painful and stertorous; his mind was wandering in delirious dreams; his voice became inarticulate. At a moment of returning consciousness he tried several times in vain to give some utterance to his thoughts. Then, with a despairing expression of countenance, he sank back upon his pillow. Fever flushed his cheeks, and his eyes assumed some of their wonted fire. Thus the dying hours were prolonged, as the friendless monarch, surrounded by respectful attendants, slowly descended to the grave.

His feet and legs became cold. Death was stealing its way toward the vitals. About nine o’clock Wednesday evening a painful cough commenced, with difficulty of breathing, and an ominous rattle in the throat. One of his dogs sat by his bedside, and shivered with cold; the king made a sign for them to throw a quilt over it.

Another severe fit of coughing ensued, and the king, having with difficulty got rid of the phlegm, said, “The mountain is passed; we shall be better now.” These were his last words. The expiring monarch sat in his chair, but in a state of such extreme weakness that he was continually sinking down, with his chest and neck so bent forward that breathing was almost impossible. One of his faithful valets took the king upon his knee and placed his left arm around his waist, while the king threw his right arm around the valet’s neck.

It was midnight. “Within doors all is silence; around it the dark earth is silent, above it the silent stars.” Thus for two hours the attendant sat motionless, holding the dying king. Not a word was spoken; no sound could be heard but the painful breathing which precedes death.

At just twenty minutes past two o’clock the breathing ceased, the spirit took its flight, and the lifeless body alone remained. Life’s great battle was ended, and the soul of the monarch ascended to that dread tribunal where prince and peasant must alike answer for all the deeds done in the body. It was the 17th of August, 1786. The king had reigned forty-six years, and had lived seventy-six years, six months, and twenty-four days.

One clause in the king’s will was judiciously disregarded. As a last mark of his contempt for his own species, Frederick had directed that he should be buried at Sans Souci by the side of his dogs.

In the king’s will, the only reference to any future which might be before him was the following:

“After having restored peace to my kingdom; after having conquered countries, raised a victorious army, and filled my treasury; after having established a good administration throughout my dominions; after having made my enemies tremble, I resign, without regret, this breath of life to Nature.”

He left a small sum for the support of his amiable, blameless, and neglected queen, saying, “She never gave me the least uneasiness during my whole reign, and she merits every attention and respect for her many and unshaken virtues.”

“All next day the body lay in state in the palace; thousands crowding, from Berlin and the other environs, to see that face for the last time. Wasted, worn, but beautiful in death, with the thin gray hair parted into locks, and slightly powdered.”201

At eight o’clock in the evening his body was borne, accompanied by a battalion of the Guards, to Potsdam; eight horses drew the hearse. An immense concourse, in silence and sadness, filled the streets. He was buried in a small chapel in the church of the garrison at Potsdam. There the remains of Frederick and his father repose side by side.

“Life’s labor done, securely laid
  In this, their last retreat:
Unheeded o’er their silent dust
  The storms of life shall beat.”

Footnotes

1 “He got no improvement in breeding, as we intimated; none at all: fought, on the contrary, with his young cousin, afterward our George II., a boy twice his age, though of weaker bone, and gave him a bloody nose, to the scandal and consternation of the French Protestant gentlemen and court dames in their stiff silks. ‘Ahee your electoral highness!’ This had been a rough unruly boy from the first discovery of him.”—Carlyle.

2 Geständnisse eines Œsterreichischen Veterans, i., p. 64.

3 “When his majesty took a walk, every human being fled before him, as if a tiger had broken loose from a menagerie. If he met a lady in the street, he gave her a kick, and told her to go home and mind her brats. If he saw a clergyman staring at the soldiers, he admonished the reverend gentleman to betake himself to study and prayer, and enforced this pious advice by a sound caning administered on the spot. But it was in his own house that he was most unreasonable and ferocious. His palace was hell, and he the most execrable of fiends.”—Macaulay.

4 “It was the queen-mother who encouraged the prince in his favorite amusement, and who engaged musicians for his service. But so necessary was secrecy in all these negotiations that if the king, his father, had discovered he was disobeyed, all these sons of Apollo would have incurred the danger of being hanged. The prince frequently took occasion to meet his musicians a-hunting, and had his concerts either in a forest or cavern.”—Burney, Present State of Music in Germany, ii., 139.

5 “One of the preceptors ventured to read the ‘Golden Bull’ in the original Latin with the prince royal. Frederick William entered the room, and broke out, in his usual kingly style, ‘Rascal, what are you at there?’ ‘Please your majesty,’ answered the preceptor, ‘I was explaining the “Golden Bull” to his royal highness.’ ‘I’ll Golden Bull you, you rascal!’ roared the majesty of Prussia. Up went the king’s cane, away ran the terrified instructor, and Frederick’s classical studies ended forever.”—Macaulay.

6 “Frederick William and George II., though brothers-in-law, and, in a manner, brought up together, could never endure each other, even when children. This personal hatred and settled antipathy had like to have proved fatal to their subjects. The King of England used to style the King of Prussia my brother the sergeant. The King of Prussia called the King of England my brother the player. This animosity soon infected their dealings, and did not fail to have its influence on the most important events.”—Memoirs of the House of Brandenburg, by Frederick II., vol. ii., p. 69.

7 “It was a marriage much beneath what this princess might have pretended to. But Frederick William loved such alliances—first, because they were at hand, and brought about without trouble, and thus his daughters were taken off his hands at an early age; and, secondly, because to these little princes the honor of obtaining a Princess of Prussia was sufficient, whereas great sovereigns would have required a more considerable dower than the avaricious habits of Frederick William permitted him to give.”—Life of Frederick II., by Lord Dover.

8 “The sad truth, dimly indicated, is sufficiently visible. His life for the next four or five years was extremely dissolute. Poor young man, he has got into a disastrous course; consorts chiefly with debauched young fellows, as Lieutenants Katte, Keith, and others of their stamp, who lead him on ways not pleasant to his father, nor conformable to the laws of this universe. Health, either of body or mind, is not to be looked for in his present way of life. The bright young soul, with its fine strengths and gifts wallowing like a rhinoceros in the mud bath. Some say it is wholesome for a human soul; not we.”—Carlyle, ii., p. 21.

9 “Never in any romance or stage play was young lady, without blame, without furtherance, and without hinderance of her own, so tormented about a settlement in life—passive she all the while, mere clay in the hands of the potter, and begging the universe to have the extreme goodness only to leave her alone.”—Carlyle.

10 The Prussian minister Reichenbach, at London, wrote to M. Grumkow, under date of March 14, 1730: “Reichenbach flatters himself that the king will remain firm, and not let his enemies deceive him. If Grumkow and Seckendorf have opportunity, they may tell his Prussian majesty that the whole design of this court is to render his country a province dependent on England. When once the Princess Royal of England shall be wedded to the Prince Royal of Prussia, the English, by that means, will form such a party at Berlin that they will altogether tie his Prussian majesty’s hands.”

11 Carlyle.

12 Memoires de la Margrave De Bareuth.

13 “A Captain Fouqué comes to Cüstrin on duty or as a volunteer by-and-by. He is an old friend of the prince’s; a ready-witted, hot-tempered, highly-estimable man. He is often with the prince. Their light is extinguished precisely at seven o’clock. ‘Very well, lieutenant,’ he would say, ‘you have done your orders to the Crown Prince’s light. But his majesty has no concern with Captain Fouqué’s candles,’ and thereupon would light a pair. Nay, I have heard of lieutenants who punctually blew out the prince’s light, as a matter of duty and command, and then kindled it again as a civility left free to human nature. In short, his majesty’s orders can only be fulfilled to the letter. Even in the letter his majesty’s orders are severe enough.”—Carlyle, vol. ii., p. 218.

14 Voltaire, in his unreliable “Vie Privée du Roi de Prusse,” t. ii., p. 51, says that, when Frederick became king, he settled upon Doris, who was then married and poor, an annuity of seventy-six dollars. Thiebault, far more accurate, in his “Souvenirs de Vingt Ans de Séjour à Berlin,” says he gave her a pension of one hundred and fifty-six dollars. It does not speak well for Frederick that he could have so meanly requited so terrible a wrong.

15 “The first idea of Frederick William was to deliver his son over to be condemned by the ordinary tribunal of Prussia, well knowing that his judges would never venture to decide except according to his wishes. Indeed, he took a very summary as well as a very certain mode of effecting this object; for, whenever their sentiments were not approved by him, he was in the habit of going into the court where they sat and there distributing kicks and blows to all the judges in turn, at the same time calling them rogues and blackguards! From men so circumstanced Frederick would have no chance of acquittal.”—The Life of Frederick II., by Lord Dover, vol. i., p. 33.

16 “The prince had been some weeks in his prison at Cüstrin when one day an old officer, followed by four grenadiers, entered his chamber weeping. Frederick had no doubt that he was to be made a head shorter. But the officer, still in tears, ordered the grenadiers to take him to the window and hold his head out of it, that he might be obliged to look on the execution of his friend Katte upon a scaffold expressly built for that purpose. He saw, stretched out his hand, and fainted. The father was present at this exhibition.”—Memoirs of the Life of Voltaire, p. 26.

17 “General Ginkel, the Dutch embassador, here told me of an interview he had with the king. The king harbors most monstrous wicked designs, not fit to be spoken of in words. It is certain, if he continue in the mind he is in at present, we shall see scenes here as wicked and bloody as any that were ever heard of since the creation of the world. He will sacrifice his whole family—every body, except Grumkow, being, as he imagines, in conspiracy against him. All these things he said with such imprecations and disordered looks, foaming at the mouth all the while, as it was terrible either to see or hear.”—Dickens’s Dispatch, 7th December, 1730.

18 Carlyle.

19 Life of Frederick II., by Lord Dover, vol. i., p. 127.

20 The grandmother was a very gay, fashionable woman, entirely devoted to pleasure.

21 The prince used a harsher term, which we can not quote.

22 A ruble was about eighty-five cents of our money.

23 To Frederick cultivating tranquillity.

24 Her husband.

25 The above extracts are taken from Correspondance Familière et Amicale de Frédéric II., Roi de Prusse, avec U. F. de Suhm.

26 Thibault, Souvenirs de Vingt Ans de Séjours à Berlin.

27 William III. of England.

28 Baron Bielfeld, in his letters, gives the following account of the prince’s admission to the masonic fraternity: “On the 14th the whole day was spent in preparations for the lodge. A little after midnight we saw the Prince Royal arrive, accompanied by Count W——. The prince presented this gentleman as a candidate whom he recommended, and whose reception he wished immediately to succeed his own. He desired us likewise to omit, in his reception, not any one rigorous ceremony that was used in similar cases; to grant him no indulgence whatever; but gave us leave, on this occasion, to treat him merely as a private person. In a word, he was received with all the usual and requisite formalities. I admired his intrepidity, the serenity of his countenance, and his graceful deportment even in the most critical moments. After the two receptions we opened the lodge, and proceeded to our work. He appeared delighted, and acquitted himself with as much dexterity as discernment.”—Letters of Baron Bielfeld, vol. iii., p. 36.

29 Baron Bielfeld gives the following account of the personal appearance of the king at this time: “If we judge by his portraits, he was in his youth very handsome. But it must be confessed that he does not now retain any traces of beauty. His eyes are indeed lively, but his looks are frightful. His complexion is composed of a mixture of high red, blue, yellow, and green. His head is large. His neck is quite sunk between his shoulders, and his figure is short and gross.”—Letters, vol. iii., p. 67.

30 Frederick had taken the fancy of calling his companions by classical names. Suhm was Diaphanes; Keyserling was called Cæsarion, etc.

31 Bielfeld informs us that “about one in the afternoon he sent for Ellert, his first physician, and asked him if he thought that his life and his sufferings could continue long, and if the agonies of his last moments would be great. The physician answered, ‘Your majesty has already arrived at that period. I feel the pulse retire. It now beats below your elbow.’

“The king inquired, ‘Where will it retire at last?’

“‘To the heart,’ the doctor replied. ‘And in about an hour it will cease to beat at all.’

“On which the king said, with perfect resignation, ‘God’s will be done!’”—Letters, vol. iii., p. 127.

32 Frederick William, in his reviews of the giant guard, was frequently attended by the foreign ministers who chanced to be at his court. On one of these occasions he asked the French minister if he thought that an equal number of the soldiers of France would venture to engage with these troops. With politeness, characteristic of the nation, the minister replied that it was impossible that men of the ordinary stature should think of such an attempt. The same question was asked of the English embassador. He replied, “I can not affirm that an equal number of my countrymen would beat them, but I think that I may safely say that half the number would try.”

33 Voltaire, after he had quarreled with Frederick, gave the following amusing account of a gift he received from the king soon after his accession to the throne: “He began his reign by sending an embassador extraordinary to France, one Camas, who had lost an arm. He said that, as there was a minister from the French court at Berlin who had but one hand, he, that he might acquit himself of all obligation toward the most Christian king, had sent him an embassador with one arm. Camas, as soon as he arrived safe at his inn, dispatched a lad to tell me that he was too much fatigued to come to my house, and therefore begged that I would come to him instantly, he having the finest, greatest, and most magnificent present that was ever presented to make me on the part of the king his master. ‘Run, run, as fast as you can,’ said Madame Du Châtelet; ‘he has assuredly sent you the diamonds of the crown.’ Away I ran, and found my embassador, whose only baggage was a small keg of wine, tied behind his chaise, sent from the cellar of the late king by the reigning monarch, with a royal command for me to drink. I emptied myself in protestations of astonishment and gratitude for these liquid marks of his majesty’s bounty, instead of the solid ones I had been taught to expect, and divided my keg with Camas.”—Memoirs, p. 34.

34 “As the bishops of Liege had been in possession of the contested districts for more than a century, and as Frederick William had not, any more than his predecessors, adopted any vigorous measures to gain possession of them, it is not probable that the claim of Frederick was very well founded. At all events, his conduct was violent and unjust. The inhabitants of these districts had been guilty of no crime but that of avowing their allegiance to the prince whom they had been accustomed to obey, and whom they appear to have considered as their lawful sovereign. When Frederick, therefore, sent his troops to live upon the inhabitants of those districts at discretion, he committed an act of tyranny and of cruelty which nothing in the circumstances of the case could justify.”—Memoirs of Voltaire, p. 44.

35 Memoirs, p. 47, 48.

36 “His majesty,” says M. Bielfeld, “did not appear to be greatly moved. But what followed convinces me that he possesses the art of composing his countenance, and that the emotion passed within; for he rose soon after, sent for M. Von Eichel, secretary of the cabinet, and commanded him to write to Marshal Schwerin and M. Von Podewils, Minister for Foreign Affairs, and order them to come immediately to Reinsberg. These gentlemen arrived forthwith. They daily held long and very secret conferences with his majesty. They say that sovereigns have sometimes authority even over their infirmities. The fever has shown itself docile to the will of the monarch, for after two slight attacks it has entirely left him.”—Letters, vol. iv., p. 18.

37 Macaulay, speaking of the claims of Frederick to Silesia, says: “They amount to this, that the house of Brandenburg had some ancient pretensions to Silesia, and had, in the previous century, been compelled, by hard usage on the part of the court of Vienna, to waive those pretensions. It is certain that, whoever might have been originally in the right, Prussia had submitted. Prince after prince of the house of Brandenburg had acquiesced in the existing arrangement. Nay, the court of Berlin had recently been allied with that of Vienna, and had guaranteed the integrity of the Austrian states. Is it not perfectly clear that, if antiquated claims are to be set up against recent treaties and long possession, the world can never be at peace for a day?”—Life of Frederick the Great, by Macaulay, p. 62.

38 “The King of Prussia, the Anti-Machiavel, had already fully determined to commit the great crime of violating his plighted faith, of robbing the ally whom he was bound to defend, and of plunging all Europe into a long, bloody, and desolating war, and all this for no other end whatever except that he might extend his dominions and see his name in the gazettes. He determined to assemble a great army with speed and secrecy to invade Silesia before Maria Theresa should be apprised of his design, and to add that rich province to his kingdom.”—Life of Frederick the Great, by Macaulay, p. 61.

39

No, notwithstanding your virtues, notwithstanding your attractions,
    My soul is not satisfied.
    No, you are but a coquette;
You subjugate the hearts of others, and do not give your own.

40 In this wicked world power seldom respects weakness. No sooner was the emperor dead than four claimants sprang up to wrest from Maria Theresa a part or the whole of the kingdoms she had inherited from her father; and this, notwithstanding nearly all the powers of Europe had guaranteed the Pragmatic Sanction. The Elector of Bavaria claimed Bohemia, from an article in the will of the Emperor Ferdinand I., made two centuries before. The King of Poland demanded the whole Austrian succession, in virtue of the right of his wife, who was the eldest daughter of the Emperor Joseph, elder brother of Charles VI. The King of Spain claimed all the Austrian possessions, in consequence of his descent from the wife of Philip II., who was daughter of the Emperor Maximilian. The King of Sardinia hunted up an obsolete claim to the duchy of Milan. But for the embarrassment into which these claims plunged Maria Theresa, Frederick would hardly have ventured to invade the province of Silesia. The woes which, in consequence, desolated the nations of Europe, no mind but that of the omniscient God can gauge.

41 The husband of Maria Theresa.

42 Voltaire’s Age of Louis XV., vol. i., p. 54.

43 Id.

44 Military Instructions, p. 171.

45 The army with which Frederick invaded Silesia consisted of a general force of 28,000 men, which was followed by a rear-guard of 12,000. He had, in all, about 12,000 cavalry. The remainder were foot soldiers. The artillery consisted of 20 three-pounders, 4 twelve-pounders, 4 howitzers, and 4 large mortars of fifty-pounds calibre. His artillerymen numbered 166.

46

Straverunt alii nobis, nos posteritati:
Omnibus at Christus stravit ad astra viam.

47 Charles Etienne Jordan was thirty-six years of age. He was the son of wealthy parents in Berlin, and had been a preacher. The death of a beloved wife, leaving him with an only daughter, had plunged him into the profoundest melancholy. Frederick, when Crown Prince, took a great fancy to him, making him nominally his reader, giving him charge of his library. He is represented as a man of small figure, genial, and affectionate, of remarkable vivacity, very courteous, and one who was ever careful never, by word or action, to give pain to others.

48 His next younger brother, Augustus William, who had accompanied him on the expedition.

49 Colonel Keyserling was a Courlander of good family. He had been officially named as “Companion” of the Crown Prince in his youthful days. Frederick entitled him Cæsarion, and ever regarded him as one of the choicest of his friends. He was a man of very eccentric manners, but warm-hearted and exceedingly companionable.

50 Algarotti was a Venetian gentleman of much elegance of manners and dress. He was very fervent in his utterance, and could talk fluently upon every subject. He was just of the age of Frederick. Being the son of wealthy parents, he had enjoyed great advantages of study and travel, had already published several works, and was quite distinguished as a universal genius, a logician, a poet, a philosopher, and a connoisseur in all the arts. He was a great favorite of Frederick, and accompanied him to Strasbourg and on this expedition to Silesia. Wilhelmina describes him as “one of the first beaux esprits of the age,” and “as one who does the expenses of the conversation.”

51 Leopold of Anhalt-Dessau was one of the most extraordinary men of any age. His life was but a constant whirlwind of battle, almost from his birth in 1676, to his death in 1747. His face was of the “color of gunpowder,” and his fearless, tumultuous soul was in conformity with the rugged body in which it was incased. The whole character of the man may be inferred from the following prayer, which it is said he was accustomed to offer before entering battle: “O God! assist our side. At least, avoid assisting the enemy, and leave the result to me.” Leopold, called the Old Dessauer, and his son, the Young Leopold, were of essential service to Frederick in his wars. Pages might be filled illustrative of the character of this eccentric man.

52 Military Instructions, p. 113.

53 It was the day before. But it is not surprising that the bewildered young king should have been somewhat confused in his dates.

54 Monsieur le Baron Bielfeld, Lettres Familières et Autres, tome i., p. 3.

55 “Some men,” says a quaint writer, “have a God to swear by, though they have none to pray to.”

56 Œuvres de Frédéric, t. xi., p. 90.

57 “Valori was one night with him, and, on rising to take leave, the fat hand, sticking probably in the big waistcoat pocket, twitched out a little diplomatic-looking Note, which Frederick, with gentle adroitness (permissible in such circumstances), set his foot upon, till Valori had bowed himself out.”—Carlyle, vol. iii., p. 330.

58 The Iron Crown. It was so called because there was entwined, amidst its priceless gems and exquisitely wrought frosted gold, some iron wire, said to be drawn from one of the spikes which had been driven through one of the hands of our Savior.

59 Œuvres de Frédéric, vol. ii., p. 84.

60 “Sure enough, the Sea Powers are checkmated now. Let them make the least attempt in favor of the queen if they dare. Holland can be overrun from Osnabrück quarter at a day’s warning. Little George has his Hanoverians, his subsidized Hessians, Danes, in Hanover; his English on Lexden Heath. Let him come one step over the marches, Maillebois and the Old Dessauer swallow him. It is a surprising stroke of theatrical-practical Art, brought about, to old Fleury’s sorrow, by the genius of Belleisle, and they say of Madame Châteauroux; enough to strike certain Governing Persons breathless for some time, and denotes that the Universal Hurricane, or World Tornado has broken out.”—Carlyle, vol. iii., p. 357.

61 Count Brühl was for many years the first minister of the king. He was a weak, extravagant man, reveling in voluptuousness. His decisions could always be controlled by an ample bribe. His sole object seemed to be his own personal luxurious indulgence. “Public affairs,” he said, “will carry themselves on, provided we do not trouble ourselves about them.”

Sir Charles Hanbury Williams, in his letters from Dresden, writes: “Now, as every thing of every kind, from the highest affairs of the state down to operas and hunting, are all in Count Brühl’s immediate care, I leave you to judge how his post is executed. His expenses are immense. He keeps three hundred servants and as many horses. It is said, and I believe it, that he takes money for every thing the king disposes of in Poland, where they frequently have very great employments to bestow.”

62 Histoire de mon Temps.

63 Campagnes de le Roi de Prusse, p. 5.

64 Œuvres de Frédéric, xvii., p. 196.

65 Campaigns of the King of Prussia, p. 57.

66 Correspondance de Frédéric II.

67 “Huge huzzaing, herald-trumpeting, bob-major-ing, burst forth from all Prussian towns, especially from all Silesian ones, in those June days, as the drums beat homeward; elaborate illuminations in the short nights, with bonfires, with transparencies; transparency inscribed ‘Frederico Magno (To Frederick the Great),’ in one small instance, still of premature nature.”—Carlyle.

68 Bielfeld, 251.

69 Histoire de mon Temps.

70 Bielfeld, p. 251.

71 It would seem that Voltaire was sent to Frederick as the secret agent and spy of the French minister. “Voltaire,” writes Macaulay, “was received with every mark of respect and friendship. The negotiation was of an extraordinary description. Nothing can be conceived more whimsical than the conferences which took place between the first literary man and the first practical man of the age, whom a strange weakness had induced to change their parts. The great poet would talk of nothing but treaties and guarantees, and the king of nothing but metaphors and rhymes. On one occasion Voltaire put into his majesty’s hand a paper on the state of Europe, and received it back with verses scrawled on the margin. In secret they both laughed at each other. Voltaire did not spare the king’s poems, and the king has left on record his opinion of Voltaire’s diplomacy, saying, ‘He had no credentials, and the whole mission was a mere farce.’”

As a specimen of the character of the document above alluded to, we give the following. Voltaire, in what he deemed a very important state paper, had remarked,

“The partisans of Austria burn with the desire to open the campaign in Silesia again. Have you, in that case, any ally but France? And, however potent you are, is an ally useless to you?”

The king scribbled on the margin,

“Mon ami,
Don’t you see
We will receive them
A la Barbari!”

72 Œuvres de Frédéric, XXVII., vol. i., p. 387.

73 Letters of Bielfeld, vol. i., p. 188.

74 In Pöllnitz’s memoirs and letters he repeated the rumor that the great elector’s second wife, an ancestor of Frederick, had attempted to poison her step-son.

75 Voltaire is proverbially inaccurate in details. It was the king’s invariable custom to rise at four in summer and six in winter.

76 “In his retreat Frederick is reported to have lost above thirty thousand men, together with most of his heavy baggage and artillery, and many wagons laden with provisions and plunder.”—Tower’s Life and Reign of Frederick, vol. i., p. 209.

77 Carlyle, vol. iv., p. 50.

78 Carlyle, vol. iv., p. 76.

79 Carlyle, vol. iv., p. 54.

80 Carlyle, vol. i., p. 302.

81 Carlyle, vol. iv., p. 80.

82 Œuvres de Frédéric, t. ii., p. 218.

83 Œuvres de Frédéric, t. iii., p. 123.

84 Scamander, a small stream in Asia Minor, celebrated in the songs of Homer.

85 Robinson’s Dispatch, August 4, 1745.

86 Histoire de mon Temps.

87 In this, as in most other similar cases, there is considerable diversity of statement as to the precise number of troops engaged on either side. But there is no question that the Austrians were in numbers far superior to the Prussians.

88 Müller, Tableaux des guerres de Frédéric le Grand.

89 Mémoires de Frédéric, Baron de Trenck.

90 Carlyle, vol. iv., p. 171.

91 Id. ibid.

92 Voltaire, speaking of this action, says: “It was the famous old Prince of Anhalt who gained this decisive victory. He had been a warrior fifty years, and was the first who had entered into the lines of the French army at Turin in 1707. For conducting the infantry he was esteemed the most experienced officer in Europe. This great battle was the last that filled up the measure of his military glory—the only glory which he had enjoyed, for fighting was his only province.”—Age of Louis XV., chap. xvii.

93 “About three pounds ten shillings, I think—better than ten pounds in our day to a common man, and better than one hundred pounds to a Linsenbarth.”—Carlyle.

94 Commentaire Historique sur les Œuvres de l’Auteur de la Henriade.

95 Supplément aux Œuvres Posthumes de Frédéric, ii.

96 Voltaire boasted that he had gained the cause, because the Jew was fined thirty shillings. But he knew full well, as did every one else, that the result of the suit covered him with dishonor.

97 This was a private letter which reflected severely upon the character of Maupertuis.

98 Thiebault, Souvenirs de Vingt Ans de Séjour à Berlin.

99 Biographie Universelle.

100 In a letter which the Prince of Prussia, Augustus William, wrote to the king, remonstrating against those encroachments which were arraying all Europe against him, he says: “Russia is persuaded that your designs upon her occasioned the applications which you have made to the court of Vienna to substitute a truce of two years in room of a solemn treaty of peace. She believes that you wanted to tie up the hands of the empress queen so as to put it out of her power to succor her ally; that a war against Russia was the principal object of your intrigues in Sweden; that you have designs upon Courland; that Polish Prussia and Pomerania would be very convenient to you; and that you find Russia the greatest obstacle to this rounding of your dominions. In short, she believes that she has the same interest in your abasement as the house of Austria.”—Vie de Frédéric II., Roi de Prusse, t. ii., p. 318.

101 Age of Louis XV., chapter xxxii.

102 Archenholtz, Histoire de la Guerre de cet Homme.

103 An uncle of the great Mirabeau.

104 The Duchess of Pompadour.

105 In the years 1508–1509 the celebrated league of Cambrai was formed by Louis XII. of France, Maximilian, Emperor of Germany, Ferdinand, King of Spain, and Pope Julius II., against Venice. The league was called Holy because the pope took part in it.

106 “Ainsi mon seul asile en mon unique port
Se trouve, chère sœur, dans les bràs de la mort.”

107 Correspondance Familière et Amicale, tome i., p. 31.

108 “Heaven!” This was probably a slip of the pen. Frederick would have been perplexed to explain who or what he meant by “Heaven.” It would, however, subsequently appear that he used the word as synonymous with fate or destiny.

109 The atheistic pen of Frederick will sometimes slip.

110 Memoires pour servir à la Vie de M. De Voltaire.

111 Carlyle, vol. v., p. 168.

112 Archenholtz, vol. i., p. 209.

113 “Gieb dass ich thu’ mit Fleiss was mir zu thun gebühret,
Wozu mich dein Befehl in meinem Stande führet,
Gieb dass ich’s thue bald, zu der Zeit da ich’s soll;
Und wenn ich’s thu’, so gieb dass es gerathe wohl.”

114 “Indeed, there is in him, in those grim days, a tone as of trust in the Eternal, as of real religious piety and faith, scarcely noticeable elsewhere in his history. His religion, and he had, in withered forms, a good deal of it, if we will look well, being almost always in a strictly voiceless state—nay, ultra voiceless, or voiced the wrong way, as is too well known!”—Carlyle.

115 “Nun danket alle Gott
  Mit Herzen, Mund und Händen,
Der grosse Dinge thut,
  An uns und allen Enden.”

116 Vie de Frédéric II., Roi de Prusse, Strasbourg, 1788, t. ii., p. 317.

117 Carlyle.

118 The son of the late Prince of Prussia. He was now heir to the crown.

119 Carlyle.

120 London Magazine, vol. xxvii., p. 670.

121 This confession of the king is worthy of notice. His philosophy afforded him no consolation in these hours of anguish. It is faith in Christ alone which can “take from death its sting, and from the grave its victory.”

122 Correspondance de Voltaire avec le Roi de Prusse.

123 Archenholtz, Histoire de la Guerre de Sept Ans.

124 Histoire de la Guerre de Sept Ans, par Frédéric II.

125 “The loss of his Wilhelmina, had there been no other grief, has darkened all his life to Frederick. Readers are not prepared for the details of grief we could give, and the settled gloom of mind they indicate. A loss irreparable and immeasurable; the light of life, the one heart that loved him, gone. All winter he dwells internally on the sad matter, though soon falling silent on it to others.”—Carlyle, vol. v., p. 318.

126 Carlyle, vol. v., p. 314.

127 Œuvres de Frédéric, t. xix., p. 56.

128 Mémoires pour servir à la Vie de M. De Voltaire, Ecrit par Lui-même.

129 The Duchess of Pompadour.

130 Œuvres de Frédéric, t. xxiii., p. 53.

131 Histoire de la Guerre de Sept Ans, par Frédéric II.

132 General Haddick was in command of an Austrian force marching to join the Russians. Frederick had surprised one of his detachments.

133 General Finck, one of the most efficient of Frederick’s generals, to whom we shall often hereafter refer.

134 This was a mistake. Frederick had probably been misinformed.

135 There were three horses shot under Frederick; but from the third the king dismounted before he fell.

136 Haddick and Loudon were two of the most able generals in the army of Soltikof.

137 Prince Henry.

138 This was a slip of the pen. The battle of Kunersdorf was on the 12th.

139 “I pray God!” Even the heart of the atheist in hours of calamity yearns for a God.

140 The king here undoubtedly refers to the vial of poison which he invariably carried in his waistcoat pocket.

141 “Of the 14,000 men who had made the expedition with him, only 3000 remained unwounded at the time of the capitulation.”—Life of Frederick II., by Lord Dover, vol. ii., p. 134.

142 Carlyle, vol. v., p. 469.

143 Biographie Universelle.

144 Œuvres de Frédéric, t. xxii., p. 61.

145 Voltaire’s niece, Madame Denis, was with him when he was arrested at Frankfort, and she was terribly frightened.

146 Œuvres de Voltaire, t. lxxx., p. 313.

147 Archenholtz, vol. ii., p. 53.

148 “The symptoms we decipher in these letters, and otherwise, are those of a man drenched in misery; but used to his black element, unaffectedly defiant of it, or not at the pains to defy it; occupied only to do his very utmost in it, with or without success, till the end come.”—Carlyle.

149 Annual Register, vol. iii., p. 209.

150 Life of Frederick II., by Lord Dover, vol. ii., p. 152.

151 The king had a coat torn from him by a rebounding cannon-ball, and a horse shot under him.

152 Œuvres Posthumes de Frédéric II.

153 “No human intellect in our day could busy itself with understanding these thousandfold marchings, manœuvrings, assaults, surprisals, sudden facings about (retreat changed to advance); nor could the powerfulest human memory, not exclusively devoted to study the art military under Frederick, remember them when understood.”—Carlyle, vol. vi., p. 59.

154 Great in small things, small in great things.

155 Œuvres de Frédéric, t. xix., p. 139.

156 When one has lost every thing, when one has no longer hope,
Life is a disgrace, and death a duty.

157 Carlyle.

158 Œuvres de Frédéric, t. xix., p. 204.

159 Correspondance Familière et Amicale de Frédéric, Roi de Prusse, t. ii., p. 140.

160 Carlyle.

161 Life of Frederick II., by Lord Dover, vol. ii., p. 170.

162 Walpole’s Letters to Sir Horace Mann, vol. i., p. 6, 7.

163 Maria Theresa of Austria, Elizabeth, Empress of Russia, and the Marchioness of Pompadour, who was virtually Queen of France.

164 Vie de Frédéric II., Roi de Prusse, t. ii., p. 141.

165 Prusse, t. ii., p. 282.

166 Küster, Charakterzüge des General Lieutenant v. Saldern, p. 40

167 Carlyle.

168 Archenholtz, vol. ii., p. 262.

169 Œuvres de Frédéric, t. xix., p. 281.

170 Carlyle.

171 Carlyle.

172 Carlyle.

173 Military Instructions, written by the King of Prussia, p. 176.

174 Archenholtz, Histoire de la Guerre de Sept Ans.

175 “Northern tourists, Wraxall and others, passing that way, speak of this princess down to recent times as a phenomenon of the place. Apparently a high and peremptory kind of lady, disdaining to be bowed too low by her disgraces. She survived all her generation, and the next and the next, and, indeed, into our own. Died 18th February, 1840, at the age of ninety-six.”—Carlyle.

176 Œuvres de Frédéric, t. vi., p. 23.

177 Œuvres Posthumes de D’Alembert, t. i., p. 197, cited by Carlyle, vol. vi., p. 283.

178 Histoire ou Anecdotes sur la Révolution de Russie en l’année 1762, par M. Rulhière.

179 Œuvres de Frédéric, t. vi., p. 26.

180 Correspondance avec l’Electrice Marie-Antoine.

181 Pezzl, Vie de Loudon, vol. ii., p. 29.

182 “Kaunitz,” writes Frederick, “had a clear intellect, greatly twisted by perversities of temper, especially by a self-conceit and arrogance which were boundless. He did not talk, but preach. At the smallest interruption he would stop short in indignant surprise. It has happened that at the council-board in Schönbrunn, when her imperial majesty has asked some explanation of a word or thing not understood by her, Kaunitz made his bow and quitted the room.”

183 Œuvres de Frédéric, t. xxvi., p. 30.

184 Schnitzler, vol. ii., p. 247.

185 Œuvres de Frédéric, t. xxvi., p. 345.

186 Hormayr, Taschenbuch, 1831, S. 66, cited by Dr. J. D. E. Preuss, Historiographer of Brandenburg, in his life of Friedrich der Grosse, vol. iv., p. 38.

187 Preuss, vol. iv., p. 39.

188 G. Freytag, Neue Bilder aus dem Leben des deutschen Volkes, cited by Carlyle, vol. vi., p. 378.

189 Freytag, p. 397.

190 Œuvres de Frédéric, t. vi., p. 124.

191 Carlyle, vol. vi., p. 446–449.

192 Schmettau, vol. xxv., p. 30.

193 Preuss, t. iv., p. 187.

194 Fischer, vol. ii., p. 445, as cited by Carlyle.

195 Carlyle, vol. vi., p. 529.

196 Carlyle.

197 Correspondance Inédite de Marie Antoinette, p. 137.

198 Mémoires et Mélanges Historiques et Littéraires, par le Prince de Ligny.

199 Dr. Moore, View of Society and Manners in France, Switzerland, and Germany.

200 Carlyle, vol. vi., p. 535.

201 Rödenbeck, vol. iii., p. 365.