History of Friedrich II of Prussia V 21
by
Thomas Carlyle
Part 2 out of 7
ELECTRESS MARIE-ANTOINE TO FRIEDRICH.
"DRESDEN, 5th October, 1763.
"SIRE,--Your Majesty has given me such assurance of your goodness
and your friendship, that I will now appeal to that promise.
You have assured us, too, that you would with pleasure contribute
to secure Poland for us. The moment is come for accomplishing that
promise. The King is dead [died this very day; see if _I_ lose time
in sentimental lamentations!]--with him these grievances of Russia
[our stiffness on Courland and the like] must be extinct;
the rather as we [the now reigning] will lend ourselves willingly
to everything that can be required of us for perfect reconcilement
with that Power.
"You can do all, if you will it; you can contribute to this
reconcilement. You can render it favorable to us. You will, give me
that proof of the flattering sentiments I have been so proud of
hitherto,"--won't you, now? "Russia cannot disapprove the mediation
you might deign to offer on that behalf;--our intentions being so
honestly amicable, and all ground of controversy having died with
the late King. Russia reconciled, our views on the Polish Crown
might at once be declared (ECLATER)." Oh, do it, your Majesty;--"my
gratitude shall only end with life!--M. A." [ OEuvres de
Frederic, xxiv. 47.]
Friedrich, who is busy negotiating his Treaty with Russia
(perfected 11th April next), and understands that they will mean
not to have a Saxon, but to have a Piast, and perhaps dimly even
what Piast (Stanislaus Poniatowski, the EMERITUS Lover), who will
be their own, and not Saxony's at all,--must have been a little
embarrassed by such an appeal from his fair friend at this moment.
"Wait a little; don't answer yet," would have occurred to the
common mind. But that was not Friedrich's resource: he answers by
return of post, as always in such cases;--and in the following
adroit manner brushes off, without hurt to it, with kisses to it
rather, the beautiful hand that has him by the button:--
TO THE ELECTRESS MARIE-ANTOINE (at Dresden).
"BERLIN, 8th October, 1763.
"MADAM MY SISTER,--I begin by making my condolences and my
congratulations to your Electoral Highness on the death of the King
your Father-in-law, and on your Accession to the Electorate.
"Your Electoral Highness will remember what I wrote, not long
since, on the affairs of Poland. I am afraid, Madam, that Russia
will be more contrary to you than you think. M. de Woronzow [famous
Grand-Chancellor of Russia; saved himself dexterously in the late
Peter-Catharine overturn; has since fallen into disfavor for his
notions about our Gregory Orlof, and is now on his way to Italy,
"for health's sake," in consequence], who is just arrived here,
["Had his audience 7th October" (yesterday): Rodenbeck, ii. 224.]
told me, too, of some things which raise an ill augury of this
affair. If you do not disapprove of my speaking frankly to you, it
seems to me that it would be suitable in you to send some discreet
Diplomatist to that Court to notify the King's death; and you would
learn by him what you have to expect from her Czarish Majesty [the
Empress, he always calls her, knowing she prefers that title].
It seems to me, Madam, that it would be precipitate procedure
should I wish to engage you in an Enterprise, which appears to
myself absolutely dubious (HASARDEE), unless approved by that
Princess. As to me, Madam, I have not the ascendant there which you
suppose: I act under rule of all the delicacies and discretions
with a Court which separated itself from my Enemies when all Europe
wished to crush me: but I am far from being able to regulate the
Empress's way of thinking.
"It is the same with the quarrels about the Duke of Courland;
one cannot attempt mediation except by consent of both parties.
I believe I am not mistaken in supposing that the Court of Russia
does not mean to terminate that business by foreign mediation.
What I have heard about it (what, however, is founded only on vague
news) is, That the Empress might prevail upon herself (POURRAIT SE
RESOUDRE) to purchase from Bruhl the Principality of Zips [Zips, on
the edge of Hungary; let readers take note of that Principality, at
present in the hand of Bruhl,--who has much disgusted Poland by his
voracity for Lands; and is disgorging them all again, poor soul!],
to give it to Prince Karl in compensation: but that would lead to a
negotiation with the Court of Vienna, which might involve the
affair in other contentions.
"I conjure you, Madam, I repeat it, Be not precipitate in anything;
lest, as my fear is, you replunge Europe into the troubles it has
only just escaped from! As to me, I have found, since the Peace, so
much to do within my own borders, that I have not, I assure you,
had time, Madam, to think of going abroad. I confine myself to
forming a thousand wishes for the prosperity of your Electoral
Highness, assuring you of the high esteem with which I am,--F."
[ OEuvres de Frederic, xxiv. 48.]
After some farther Letters, of eloquently pressing solicitation on
the part of the Lady, and earnest advising, as well as polite
fencing, on the part of Friedrich, the latter writes:--
FRIEDRICH TO ELECTRESS.
"MADAM MY SISTER,--At this moment I receive a Letter from the
Empress of Russia, the contents of which do not appear to me
favorable, Madam, to your hopes. She requires (EXIGE) that I should
instruct my Minister in Poland to act entirely in concert with the
Count Kayserling; and she adds these very words: 'I expect, from
the friendship of your Majesty, that you will not allow a passage
through your territory, nor the entry into Poland, to Saxon troops,
who are to be regarded there absolutely as strangers.'
"Unless your Letters, Madam [Madam had said that she had written to
the Empress, assuring her &c.] change the sentiments of the
Empress, I do not see in what way the Elector could arrive at the
throne of Poland; and consequently, whether I deferred to the
wishes of the Empress in this point, or refused to do so, you would
not the more become Queen; and I might commit myself against a
Power which I ought to keep well with (MENAGER). I am persuaded,
Madam, that your Electoral Highness enters into my embarrassment;
and that, unless you find yourself successful in changing the
Empress's own ideas on this matter, you will not require of me that
I should embroil myself fruitlessly with a neighbor who deserves
the greatest consideration from me.
"All this is one consequence of the course which Count Bruhl
induced his late Polish Majesty to take with regard to the
interests of Prince Karl in Courland; and your Electoral Highness
will remember, that I often represented to you the injury which
would arise to him from it.
"I will wish, Madam, that other opportunities may occur, where it
may be in my power to prove to your Electoral Highness the profound
esteem and consideration with which I am--"--F. [ OEuvres
de Frederic, xxiv. 52.]
ELECTRESS TO FRIEDRICH.
"DRESDEN, 11th November, 1763.
"SIRE,--I am not yet disheartened. I love to flatter myself with
your friendship, Sire, and I will not easily renounce the hope that
you will give me a real mark of it in an affair which interests me
so strongly. Nobody has greater ascendency over the mind of the
Empress of Russia than your Majesty; use it, Sire, to incline it to
our favor. Our obligation will be infinite. ... Why should she be
absolutely against us? What has she to fear from us? The Courland
business, if that sticks with her, could be terminated in a
suitable manner."--Troops into Poland, Sire? "My Husband so little
thinks of sending troops thither, that he has given orders for the
return of those already there. He does not wish the Crown except
from the free suffrages of the Nation: if the Empress absolutely
refuse to help him with her good offices, let her, at least, not be
against him. Do try, Sire." [Ib. xxiv. 53.]--Friedrich answers,
after four days, or by return of post--But we will give the rest in
the form of Dialogue.
FRIEDRICH (after four days). ... "If, Madam, I had Crowns to give
away, I would place the first on your head, as most worthy to bear
it. But I am far from such a position. I have just got out of a
horrible War, which my enemies made upon me with a rage almost
beyond example; I endeavor to cultivate friendship with all my
neighbors, and to get embroiled with nobody. With regard to the
affairs of Poland, an Empress whom I ought to be well with, and to
whom I owe great obligations, requires me to enter into her
measures; you, Madam, whom I would fain please if I could, you want
me to change the sentiments of this Empress. Do but enter into my
embarrassment! ... According to all I hear from Russia, it appears
to me that every resolution is taken there; and that the Empress is
resolved even to sustain the party of her partisans in Poland with
the forces she has all in readiness at the borders. As for me,
Madam, I wish, if possible, not to meddle at all with this
business, which hitherto is not complicated, but which may, any
day, become so by the neighbors of Poland taking a too lively part
in it. Ready, otherwise, on all occasions, to give to your
Electoral Highness proofs of my--" [ OEuvres de Frederic,
xxiv, 54: "Potsdam, 16th November, 1763."]
Electress (after ten days). ... "Why should the Empress be so much
against us? We have not deserved her hatred. On the contrary, we
seek her friendship. She declares, however, that she will uphold
the freedom of the Poles in the election of their King. You, Sire"
--[Ib. xxiv. 55: "Dresden, 26th November, 1763."] But we must cut
short, though it lasts long months after this. Great is the
Electress's persistence,--"My poor Husband being dead, cannot our
poor Boy, cannot his uncle Prince Xavier try? O Sire!" Our last
word shall be this of Friedrich's; actual Election-time now
drawing nigh:--
FRIEDRICH. "I am doing like the dogs who have fought bitterly till
they are worn down: I sit licking my wounds. I notice most European
Powers doing the same; too happy if, whilst Kings are being
manufactured to right and left, public tranquillity is not
disturbed thereby, and if every one may continue to dwell in peace
beside his hearth and his household gods." ["Sans-Souci, 26th June,
1764" (Ib. p. 69).] Adieu, bright Madam.
No reader who has made acquaintance with Polish History can well
doubt but Poland was now dead or moribund, and had well deserved to
die. Anarchies are not permitted in this world. Under fine names,
they are grateful to the Populaces, and to the Editors of
Newspapers; but to the Maker of this Universe they are eternally
abhorrent; and from the beginning have been forbidden to be.
They go their course, applauded or not applauded by self and
neighbors,--for what lengths of time none of us can know; for a
long term sometimes, but always for a fixed term; and at last their
day comes. Poland had got to great lengths, two centuries ago, when
poor John Casimir abdicated his Crown of Poland, after a trial of
twenty years, and took leave of the Republic in that remarkable
SPEECH to the Diet of 1667.
This John is "Casimir V.," last Scion of the Swedish House of
Vasa,--with whom, in the Great Elector's time, we had some slight
acquaintance; and saw at least the three days' beating he got
(Warsaw, 28th-30th July, 1656) from Karl Gustav of Sweden and the
Great Elector, [Supra, v. 284-286.] ancestors respectively of Karl
XII. and of our present Friedrich. He is not "Casimir the Great" of
Polish Kings; but he is, in our day, Casimir the alone Remarkable.
It seems to me I once had IN EXTENSO this Valedictory Speech of
his; but it has lapsed again into the general Mother of Dead Dogs,
and I will not spend a week in fishing for it. The gist of the
Speech, innumerable Books and Dead Dogs tell you, [HISTOIRE DES
TROIS DEMEMBREMENS does, and many others do;--copied in
Biographie Universelle, vii. 278 (? Casimir).] is
"lamentation over the Polish Anarchies" and "a Prophecy," which is
very easily remembered. The poor old Gentleman had no doubt eaten
his peck of dirt among those Polacks, and swallowed chagrins till
he felt his stomach could no more, and determined to have done with
it. To one's fancy, in abridged form, the Valediction must have run
essentially as follows:--
"Magnanimous Polack Gentlemen, you are a glorious Republic, and
have NIE POZWALAM, and strange methods of business, and of behavior
to your Kings and others. We have often fought together, been
beaten together, by our enemies and by ourselves; and at last I,
for my share, have enough of it. I intend for Paris; religious-
literary pursuits, and the society of Ninon de l'Enclos. I wished
to say before going, That according to all record, ancient and
modern, of the ways of God Almighty in this world, there was not
heretofore, nor do I expect there can henceforth be, a Human
Society that would stick together on those terms. Believe me, ye
Polish Chivalries, without superior except in Heaven, if your
glorious Republic continue to be managed in such manner, not good
will come of it, but evil. The day will arrive [this is the
Prophecy, almost IN IPSISSIMIS VERBIS], the day perhaps is not so
far off, when this glorious Republic will get torn into shreds,
hither, thither; be stuffed into the pockets of covetous neighbors,
Brandenburg; Muscovy, Austria; and find itself reduced to zero, and
abolished from the face of the world.
"I speak these words in sorrow of soul; words which probably you
will not believe. Which only Fate can compel you to believe, one
day, if they are true words:--you think, probably, they are not?
Me at least, or interest of mine, they do not regard. I speak them
from the fulness of my heart, and on behest of friendship and
conviction alone; having the honor at this moment to bid you and
your Republic a very long farewell. Good-morning, for the last
time!" and so EXIT: to Rome (had been Cardinal once); to Paris and
the society of Ninon's Circle for the few years left him of life.
["Died 16th December, 1672, age 63."]
This poor John had had his bitter experiences: think only of one
instance. In 1662, the incredible Law of LIBERUM VETO had been
introduced, in spite of John and his endeavors. LIBERUM VETO; the
power of one man to stop the proceedings of Polish Parliament by
pronouncing audibly "NIE POZWALAM, I don't permit!"--never before
or since among mortals was so incredible a Law. Law standing
indisputable, nevertheless, on the Polish Statute-Book for above
two hundred years: like an ever-flowing fountain of Anarchy, joyful
to the Polish Nation. How they got any business done at all, under
such a Law? Truly they did but little; and for the last thirty
years as good as none. But if Polish Parliament was universally in
earnest to do some business, and Veto came upon it, Honorable
Members, I observe, gathered passionately round the vetoing
Brother; conjured, obtested, menaced, wept, prayed; and, if the
case was too urgent and insoluble otherwise, the NIE POZWALAM
Gentleman still obstinate, they plunged their swords through him,
and in that way brought consent. The commoner course was to
dissolve and go home again, in a tempest of shrieks and curses.
The Right of Confederation, too, is very curious: do readers know
it? A free Polack gentleman, aggrieved by anything that has
occurred or been enacted in his Nation, has the right of swearing,
whether absolutely by himself I know not, but certainly with two or
three others of like mind, that he will not accept said occurrence
or enactment, and is hereby got into arms against its abettors and
it. The brightest jewel in the cestus of Polish Liberty is this
right of confederating; and it has been, till of late, and will be
now again practised to all lengths: right of every Polish,
gentleman to confederate with every other against, or for,
whatsoever to them two may seem good; and to assert their
particular view of the case by fighting for it against all comers,
King and Diet included. It must be owned, there never was in Nature
such a Form of Government before; such a mode of social existence,
rendering "government" impossible for some generations past.
On the strength of Saxony and its resources and connections, the
two Augusts had contrived to exist with the name of Kings; with the
name, but with little or nothing more. Under this last August, as
we heard, there have been about forty Diets, and in not one of them
the least thing of business done; all the forty, after trying their
best, have stumbled on NIE POZWALAM, and been obliged to vanish in
shrieks and curses. [Buchholz ( Preussisch-Brandenburgische
Geschichte, ii. 133, 134, &c. &c.) gives various
samples, and this enumeration.] As to August the Physically Strong,
such treatment had he met with,--poor August, if readers remember,
had made up his mind to partition Poland; to give away large
sections of it in purchase of the consent of neighbors, and plant
himself hereditarily in the central part;--and would have done so,
had not Grumkow and he drunk so deep, and death by inflammation of
the foot suddenly come upon the poor man. Some Partition of Poland
has been more than once thought of by practical people concerned.
Poland, as "a house chronically smoking through the slates," which
usually brings a new European War every time it changes King, does
require to be taken charge of by its neighbors.
Latterly, as we observed, there has been little of confederating;
indeed, for the last thirty years, as Rulhiere copiously informs
us, there has been no Government, consequently no mutiny needed;
little or no National business of any kind,--the Forty Diets having
all gone the road we saw. Electing of the Judges,--that, says
Rulhiere, and wearisomely teaches by example again and ever again,
has always been an interesting act, in the various Provinces of
Poland; not with the hope of getting fair or upright Judges, but
Judges that will lean in the desirable direction. In a country
overrun with endless lawsuits, debts, credits, feudal intricacies,
claims, liabilities, how important to get Judges with the proper
bias! And these once got, or lost till next term,--what is there to
hope or to fear? Russia does our Politics, fights her Seven-Years
War across us; and we, happy we, have no fighting;--never till this
of Courland was there the least ill-nature from Russia! We are
become latterly the peaceable stepping-stone of Russia into Europe
and out of it;--what may be called the door-mat of Russia, useful
to her feet, when she is about paying visits or receiving them!
That is not a glorious fact, if it be a safe and "lucky" one;
nor do the Polish Notabilities at all phrase it in that manner.
But a fact it is; which has shown itself complete in the late
Czarina's and late August's time, and which had been on the growing
hand ever since Peter the Great gained his Battle of Pultawa, and
rose to the ascendency, instead of Karl and Sweden.
The Poles put fine colors on all this; and are much contented with
themselves. The Russians they regard as intrinsically an inferior
barbarous people; and to this day you will hear indignant Polack
Gentlemen bursting out in the same strain: "Still barbarian, sir;
no culture, no literature,"--inferior because they do not make
verses equal to ours! How it may be with the verses, I will not
decide: but the Russians are inconceivably superior in respect that
they have, to a singular degree among Nations, the gift of obeying,
of being commanded. Polack Chivalry sniffs at the mention of such a
gift. Polack Chivalry got sore stripes for wanting this gift.
And in the end, got striped to death, and flung out of the world,
for continuing blind to the want of it, and never acquiring it.
Beyond all the verses in Nature, it is essential to every Chivalry
and Nation and Man. "Polite Polish Society for the last thirty
years has felt itself to be in a most halcyon condition," says
Rulhiere: [Rulhiere, i. 216 (a noteworthy passage).] "given up to
the agreeable, and to that only;" charming evening-parties, and a
great deal of flirting; full of the benevolences, the
philanthropies, the new ideas,--given up especially to the pleasing
idea of "LAISSEZ-FAIRE, and everything will come right of itself."
"What a discovery!" said every liberal Polish mind: "for thousands
of years, how people did torment themselves trying to steer the
ship; never knowing that the plan was, To let go the helm, and
honestly sit down to your mutual amusements and powers
of pleasing!"
To this condition of beautifully phosphorescent rot-heap has Poland
ripened, in the helpless reigns of those poor Augusts;--the fulness
of time not now far off, one would say? It would complete the
picture, could I go into the state of what is called "Religion" in
Poland. Dissenterism, of various poor types, is extensive;
and, over against it, is such a type of Jesuit Fanaticism as has no
fellow in that day. Of which there have been truly savage and
sanguinary outbreaks, from time to time; especially one at Thorn,
forty years ago, which shocked Friedrich Wilhelm and the whole
Protestant world. [See supra, vi. 64 (and many old Pamphlets on
it).] Polish Orthodoxy, in that time, and perhaps still in ours, is
a thing worth noting. A late Tourist informs me, he saw on the
streets of Stettin, not long since, a drunk human creature
staggering about, who seemed to be a Baltic Sailor, just arrived;
the dirtiest, or among the dirtiest, of mankind; who, as he reeled
along, kept slapping his hands upon his breast, and shouting, in
exultant soliloquy, "Polack, Catholik!" _I_ am a Pole and Orthodox,
ye inferior two-legged entities!.--In regard to the Jesuit
Fanaticisms, at Thorn and elsewhere, no blame can attach to the
poor Augusts, who always leant the other way, what they durst or
could. Nor is specialty of blame due to them on any score; it was
"like People, like King," all along;--and they, such their luck,
have lived to bring in the fulness of time.
The Saxon Electors are again aspirants for this enviable Throne.
We have seen the beautiful Electress zealously soliciting Friedrich
for help in that project; Friedrich, in a dexterously graceful
manner, altogether declining. Hereditary Saxons are not to be the
expedient this time, it would seem; a grandiose Czarina has decided
otherwise. Why should not she? She and all the world are well
aware, Russia has been virtual lord of Poland this long time.
Credible enough that Russia intends to continue so; and also that
it will be able, without very much expenditure of new contrivance
for that object.
So far as can be guessed and assiduously deduced from RULHIERE,
with your best attention, Russian Catharine's interference seems
first of all to have been grounded on the grandiose philanthropic
principle. Astonishing to the liberal mind; yet to appearance true.
Rulhiere nowhere says so; but that is gradually one's own
perception of the matter; no other refuge for you out of flat
inconceivability. Philanthropic principle, we say, which the
Voltaires and Sages of that Epoch are prescribing as one's duty and
one's glory: "O ye Kings, why won't you do good to mankind, then?"
Catharine, a kind of She-Louis Quatorze, was equal to such a thing.
To put one's cast Lover into a throne,--poor soul, console him in
that manner;--and reduce the long-dissentient Country to blessed
composure under him: what a thing! Foolish Poniatowski, an empty,
windy creature, redolent of macassar and the finer sensibilities of
the heart: him she did make King of Poland; but to reduce the
long-dissentient Country to composure,--that was what she could not
do. Countries in that predicament are sometimes very difficult to
compose. The Czarina took, for above five years, a great deal of
trouble, without losing patience. The Czarina, after every new
effort, perceived with astonishment that she was farther from
success than ever. With astonishment; and gradually with
irritation, thickening and mounting towards indignation.
There is no reason to believe that the grandiose Woman handled, or
designed to handle, a doomed Poland in the merciless feline-
diabolic way set forth with wearisome loud reiteration in those
distracted Books; playing with the poor Country as cat does with
mouse; now lifting her fell paw, letting the poor mouse go loose in
floods of celestial joy and hope without limit; and always
clutching the hapless creature back into the blackness of death,
before eating and ending it. Reason first is, that the Czarina, as
we see her elsewhere, never was in the least a Cat or a Devil, but
a mere Woman; already virtual proprietress of Poland, and needing
little contrivance to keep it virtually hers. Reason second is,
that she had not the gift of prophecy, and could not foreknow the
Polish events of the next ten years, much less shape them out
beforehand, and preside over them, like a Devil or otherwise, in
the way supposed.
My own private conjecture, I confess, has rather grown to be, on
much reading of those RULHIERES and distracted Books, that the
Czarina,--who was a grandiose creature, with considerable
magnanimities, natural and acquired; with many ostentations, some
really great qualities and talents; in effect, a kind of She-Louis
Quatorze (if the reader will reflect on that Royal Gentleman, and
put him into petticoats in Russia, and change his improper females
for improper males),--that the Czarina, very clearly resolute to
keep Poland hers, had determined with herself to do something very
handsome in regard to Poland; and to gain glory, both with the
enlightened Philosophe classes and with her own proud heart, by her
treatment of that intricate matter. "On the one hand," thinks she,
or let us fancy she thinks, "here is Poland; a Country fallen
bedrid amid Anarchies, curable or incurable; much tormented with
religious intolerance at this time, hateful to the philosophic
mind; a hateful fanaticism growing upon it for forty years past
[though it is quite against Polish Law]; and the cries of oppressed
Dissidents [Dissenters, chiefly of the Protestant and of the Greek
persuasion] becoming more and more distressing to hear. And, on the
other hand, here is Poniatowski who, who--!"
Readers have not forgotten the handsome, otherwise extremely
paltry, young Polack, Stanislaus Poniatowski, whom Excellency
Williams took with him 8 or 9 years ago, ostensibly as "Secretary
of Legation," unostensibly as something very different?
Handsome Stanislaus did duly become Lover of the Grand-Duchess;
and has duly, in the course of Nature, some time ago (date
uncertain to me), become discarded Lover; the question rising, What
is to be done with that elegant inane creature, and his vaporous
sentimentalisms and sublime sorrows and disappointments? "Let us
make him King of Poland!" said the Czarina, who was always much the
gentleman with her discarded Lovers (more so, I should say, than
Louis Quatorze with his;--and indeed it is computed they cost her
in direct moneys about twenty millions sterling,--being numerous
and greedy; but never the least tiff of scolding or ill language):
[Castera ( Vie de Catharine II. ) has an
elaborate Appendix on this part of his subject.]--"King of Poland,
with furnishings, and set him handsomely up in the world! We will
close the Dissident Business for him, cure many a curable Anarchy
of Poland, to the satisfaction of Voltaire and all leading spirits
of mankind. He shall have outfit of Russian troops, poor creature;
and be able to put down Anarchies, and show himself a useful and
grateful Viceroy for us there. Outfit of 10,000 troops, a wise
Russian Manager: and the Question of the Dissidents to be settled
as the first glory of his reign!"
Ingenuous readers are invited to try, in their diffuse vague
RULHIERES, and unintelligible shrieky Polish Histories, whether
this notion does not rise on them as a possible human explanation,
more credible than the feline-diabolic one, which needs withal such
a foreknowledge, UNattainable by cat or devil? Poland must not rise
to be too strong a Country, and turn its back on Russia. No, truly;
nor, except by miraculous suspension of the Laws of Nature, is
there danger of that. But neither need Poland lie utterly lame and
prostrate, useless to Russia; and be tortured on its sick-bed with
Dissident Questions and Anarchies, curable by a strong Sovereign,
of whom much is expected by Voltaire and the leading spirits
of mankind.
What we shall have to say with perfect certainty, and what alone
concerns us in our own affair, is, FIRST, that Catharine did
proceed by this method, of crowning, fitting out and otherwise
setting up Stanislaus; did attempt settlement (and at one time
thought she had settled) the Dissident Question and some curable
Anarchies,--but stirred up such legions of incurable, waxing on her
hands, day after day, year after year, as were abundantly provoking
and astonishing:--and that within the next eight years she had
arrived, with Poland and her cargo of anarchies, at results which
struck the whole world dumb. Dumb with astonishment, for some time;
and then into tempests of vociferation more or less delirious,
which have never yet quite ended, though sinking gradually to lower
and lower stages of human vocality. Fact FIRST is abundantly
manifest. Nor is fact SECOND any longer doubtful, That King
Friedrich, in regard to all this, till a real crisis elsewhere had
risen, took little or no visible interest whatever; had one
unvarying course of conduct, that of punctually following Czarish
Majesty in every respect; instructing his Minister at Warsaw always
to second and reinforce the Russian one, as his one rule of policy
in that Country,--whose distracted procedures, imbecilities and
anarchies, are, beyond this point of keeping well with a grandiose
Czarina concerned in it, of no apparent practical interest to
Prussia or its King.
Friedrich, for a long time, passed with the Public for contriver of
the Catastrophe of Poland,--"felonious mortal," "monster of
maleficence," and what not, in consequence. Rulhiere, whose notion
of him is none of the friendliest nor correctest, acquits him of
this atrocity; declares him, till the very end, mainly or
altogether passive in it. Which I think is a little more than the
truth,--and only a little, as perhaps may appear by and by.
Beyond dispute, these Polish events did at last grow interesting
enough to Prussia and its King;--and it will be our task,
sufficient in this place, to extricate and riddle out what few of
these had any cardinal or notable quality, and put them down
(dated, if possible, and in intelligible form), as pertinent to
throwing light on this distressing matter, with careful exclusion
of the immense mass which can throw only darkness.
EX-LOVER PONIATOWSKI BECOMES KING OF POLAND (7th Sept. 1764),
AND IS CROWNED WITHOUT LOSS OF HIS HAIR.
WARSAW, 7th SEPTEMBER 1764, Stanislaus Poniatowski, by what
management of an Imperial Catharine upon an anarchic Nation readers
shall imagine AD LIBITUM, was elected, what they call elected, King
of Poland. Of course there had been preliminary Diets of
Convocation, much dieting, demonstrating and electing of imaginary
members of Diet,--only "ten persons massacred" in the business.
There was a Saxon Party; but no counter-candidate of that or any
other nation. King Friedrich, solicited by a charming Electress-
Dowager, decides to remain accurately passive. Polish emissaries
came entreating him. A certain Mockranowski, who had been a soldier
under him (never of much mark in that capacity, though now a
flamingly conspicuous "General" and Politician, in the new scene he
has got into), came passionately entreating (Potsdam, Summer of
1764, is all the date), "DONNEZ NOUS LE PRINCE HENRI, Give us
Prince Henri for a King!" the sound of which almost made Friedrich
turn pale: "Have you spoken or hinted of this to the Prince?"
"No, your Majesty." "Home, then, instantly; and not a whisper of it
again to any mortal!" [Rulhiere, ii. 268; Hermann, vi. 355-364.]
which, they say, greatly irritated Prince Henri, and left a
permanent sore-place in his mind, when he came to hear of it
long after.
"A question rises here," says one of my Notes, which perhaps I had
better have burnt: "At or about what dates did this glorious
Poniatowski become Lover of the Grand-Duchess, and then become
Ex-Lover? Nobody will say; or perhaps can? [Preuss (iv. 12) seems
to try, but does not succeed.] Would have been a small satisfaction
to us, and it is denied! 'Ritter Williams' (that is, Hanbury) must
have produced him at Petersburg some time in 1756; '11th January,
1757,' finding it would suit, Poniatowski appeared there on his own
footing as 'Ambassador from Warsaw,'"--(easy to get that kind of
credential from a devoted Warsaw, if you are succeeding at the
Court of Petersburg; "Warsaw watchfully makes that the rule of
distributing its honors; and, from freezing-point upwards, is the
most delicate thermometer," says Hermann somewhere). And this, is
our one date, "Poniatowski in business, SPRING, 1757;" of
"Poniatowski fallen bankrupt," date is totally wanting.
"Poniatowski's age is 32 gone;--how long out of Russia, readers
have to guess. Made his first public appearance on the streets of
Warsaw, in the late Election time, as a Captain of Patriot
Volunteers,--'Independence of Poland! Shall Poland be dictated to!"
cried Stanislaus and an indignant Public at one stage of the
affair. His Uncles Czartoryski were piloting him in; and in that
mad element, the cries, and shiftings of tack, had to be many.
[In HERMANN, v. 362-380 (still more in RULHIERE, ii. 119-289),
wearisome account of every particular.] He is Nephew, by his
mother, of these Czartoryskis; but is not by the father of very
high family. 'Ought he to be King of Poland?' argued some Polish
Emissary at Petersburg: 'His Grandfather was Land-steward to the
Sapiehas.' 'And if he himself had been it!' said the Empress,
inflexible, though with a blush.--It seems the family was really
good, though fallen poor; and, since that Land-steward phasis, had
bloomed well out again. His Father was conspicuous as a busy,
shifting kind of man, in the Charles-Twelfth and other troubles;
had died two years ago, as 'Castellan of Cracow;' always a dear
friend of Stanislaus Leczinski, who gets his death two years hence
[in 1766, as we have seen].
"King Stanislaus Poniatowski had five Brothers: two of them dead
long before this time; a third, still alive, was Bishop of
Something, Abbot of Something; ate his revenues in peace, and
demands silence from us. The other two, Casimir and Andreas, are
better worth naming,--especially the Son of one of them is.
Casimir, the eldest, is 'Grand Crown-Chamberlain' in the days now
coming, is also 'Starost of Zips [a Country you may note the name
of!]--and has a Son,' who is NOT the remarkable one. Andreas, the
second Brother (died 1773), was in the Austrian Service, 'Ordnance-
Master,' and a man of parts and weight;--who has been here at
Warsaw, ardently helping, in the late Election time. He too had a
Son (at this time a child in arms),--who is really the remarkable
'Nephew of King Stanislaus,' and still deserves a word from us.
"This Nephew, bred as an Austrian soldier, like his Father, is the
JOSEPH PONIATOWSKI, who was very famous in the Newspapers fifty
years ago. By all appearance, a man of some real patriotism, energy
and worth. He had tried to believe (though, I think, never rightly
able) what his omnipotent Napoleon had promised him, that extinct
Poland should be resuscitated; and he fought and strove very
fiercely, his Poles and he, in that faith or half-faith.
And perished, fiercely fighting for Napoleon, fiercely covering
Napoleon's retreat when his game was lost: horse and man plunged
into the Elster River (Leipzig Country, October 19th, 1813, evening
of the 'Battle of the Nations' there), and sank forever;--and the
last gleam of Poland along with him. [ Biographie
Universelle (º Poniatowski, Joseph), xxxv. 349-359.]
Not even a momentary gleam of hope for her, in the sane or half-
sane kind, since that,--though she now and then still tries it in
the insane: the more to my regret, for her and others!
"Besides these three Brothers, King Stanislaus had two Sisters
still living: one of them Wife of a very high Zamoiski; the other
of a ditto Branicki (pronounce BraniTZki)--him whom our German
Books call KRON-GROSSFELDHERR; (Grand Crown-General,' if the Crown
have any soldiers at all; the sublime, debauched old Branicki, of
whom Rulhiere is continually talking, and never reports anything
but futilities in a futile manner. So much is futile, and not worth
reporting, in this Polish element!--King Stanislaus himself was
born 17th January, 1732; played King of shreds and patches till
1790,--or even farther (not till 1795 did Catharine pluck the paper
tabard quite off him); he died in Petersburg, February 11th or
12th) 1798." After such a life!--
Stanislaus was crowned 25th November, 1764. He needs, as
preliminary, to be anointed, on the bare scalp of him, with holy
oil before crowning; ought to have his head close-shaved with that
view. Stanislaus, having an uncommonly fine head of hair, shuddered
at the barbarous idea; absolutely would not: whereupon delay,
consultation; and at length some artificial scalp, or second skull,
of pasteboard or dyed leather, was contrived for the poor man,
which comfortably took the oiling in a vicarious way, with the
ambrosial locks well packed out of sight under it, and capable of
flowing out again next day, as if nothing had happened. [Rulhiere.]
Not a sublime specimen of Ornamental Human Nature, this poor
Stanislaus! Ornamental wholly: the body of him, and the mind of
him, got up for representation; and terribly plucked to pieces on
the stage of the world. You may try to drop a tear over him, but
will find mostly that you cannot.
FOR SEVERAL YEARS THE DISSIDENT QUESTION CANNOT BE GOT SETTLED;
CONFEDERATION OF RADOM (23d June, 1767-5th March, 1768)
PUSHES IT INTO SETTLEMENT.
For several years after this feat of the false scalp, through long
volumes, wearisome even in RULHIERE, there turns up nothing which
can now be called memorable. The settling of the Dissident Question
proves extremely tedious to an impatient Czarina; as to curing of
the other curable Anarchies, there is absolutely nothing but a
knitting up by A, with a ravelling-out again by B, and no progress
discernible whatever. Impatient Czarina ardently pushes on some
Dissident settlement,--seconded by King Friedrich and the chief
Protestant Courts, London included, and by the European leading
spirits everywhere,--through endless difficulties: finds native
Orthodoxy an unexpectedly stiff matter; Bishops generally having a
fanaticism which is wonderful to think of, and which keeps mounting
higher and higher. Till at length there will Images of the Virgin
take to weeping,--as they generally do in such cases, when in the
vicinity of brew-houses and conveniences; [Nicolai, in his TRAVELS
OVER GERMANY, doggedly undertook to overhaul one of those weeping
Virgins (somewhere in Austria, I think); and found her, he says, to
depend on subterranean percolation of steam from a Brewery not far
off.]--a Carmelite Monk go about the country working miracles;
and, in short, an extremely ugly phasis of religious human nature
disclose itself to the afflicted reader. King Friedrich thinks, had
it not been for this Dissident Question, things would have taken
their old Saxon complexion, and Poland might have rotted on as
heretofore, perhaps a good while longer.
As to the knitting-up and ravelling-out again, which is called
curing of the other anarchies, no reader can or need say anything:
it seems to be a most painful knitting-up, by the Czartoryskis
chiefly, then an instant ravelling out by malign Opposition parties
of various indistinct complexion; the knitting, the ravelling, and
the malign Opposition parties, alike indistinct and without
interest to mankind. A certain drunken, rather brutal Phantasm of a
Prince Radzivil, who hates the Czartoryskis, and is dreadfully
given to drink, to wasteful ambitions and debaucheries, figures
much in these businesses; is got banished and confiscated, by some
Confederation formed; then, by new Confederations, is recalled and
reinstated,--worse if possible than ever. The thing is reality; but
it reads like a Phantasmagory produced by Lapland Witches, under
presidency of Diabolus (very certainly the Devil presiding, as you
see at all turns),--and is not worth understanding, were it
even easy.
Much semi-intelligible, wholly forgettable stuff about King
Stanislaus and his difficulties, and his duplicities and
treacherous imbecilities, [Hermann, v. 400, &c.; Rulhiere PASSIM.]
now of interest to no mortal. Stanislaus is at one time out with
the uncles Czartoryski, at another in with these worthy gentlemen:
a man not likely to cure Anarchies, unless wishing would do it.
On the Dissident Question itself he needs spurring: a King of
liberal ideas, yes; but with such flames of fanaticism under the
nose of him. In regard to the Dissident and all other curative
processes he is languid, evasive, for moments recalcitrant to
Russian suggestions; a lost imbecile,--forget him, with or without
a tear. He has still a good deal of so-called gallantry on his
hands; flies to his harem when outside things go contradictory.
[Hermann, v. 402, &c.] Think of malign Journalists printing this
bit of Letter at one time, to do him ill in a certain quarter:
"Oh, come to me, my Princess! Dearer than all Empresses:--imperial
charms, what were they to thine for a heart that has--" with more
of the like stuff, for a Czarina's behoof.
WINTER OF 1766, Imperial Majesty, whether after or before that
miraculous Carmelite Monk, I do not remember, became impatient of
these tedious languors and tortuosities about the Dissident
Question, and gave express order, "Settle it straightway!" To which
end, Confederations and the other machinery were set agoing:
Confederations among the Protestants and Dissidents themselves,
about Thorn and such places (got up by Russian engineering), and
much more extensively in the Lithuanian parts; Confederations of
great extent, imperative, minatory; ostensibly for reinstating
these poor people in their rights (which, by old Polish Law, they
quite expressly were, if that were any matter), but in reality for
bringing back drunken Radzivil, who has covenanted to carry that
measure. And so,
JUNE 23d, 1767, These multiplex Polish-Lithuanian Confederations,
twenty-four of them in all, with their sublime marshals and
officials, and above 80,000 noblemen in them, meet by deputies at
Radom, a convenient little Town within wind of Warsaw (lies 60
miles to south of Warsaw); and there coalesce into one general
"Confederation of Radom," [Hermann, v. 420.] with drunken Radzivil
atop, who, glad to be reinstated in his ample Domains and Wine-
cellars, and willing at any rate to spite the Czartoryskis and
others, has pledged himself to carry that great measure in Diet,
and quash any NIE POZWALAMS and difficulties there may be. This is
the once world-famous, now dimly discoverable, CONFEDERATION OF
RADOM, which--by preparatory declaring, under its hand and seal,
That the Law of the Land must again become valid, and "Free Polacks
of Dissident opinions concerning Religion (NOS DISSIDENTES DE
RELIGIONE)," as the old Law phrases it, "shall have equal rights of
citizenship"--was beautifully instrumental in achieving that bit of
Human Progress, and pushing it through the Diet, and its
difficulties shortly ensuing.
Not that the Diet did not need other vigorous treatment as well,
the flame of fanaticism being frightfully ardent; many of the poor
Bishops having run nearly frantic at this open spoliation of Mother
Church, and snatching of the sword from Peter. So that Imperial
Majesty had to decide on picking out a dozen, or baker's dozen, of
the hottest Bishops; and carrying them quietly into Russia under
lock and key, till the thing were done. Done it was, surely to the
infinite relief of mankind;--I cannot say precisely on what day:
October 13th-14th (locking up of the dozen Bishops), was one vital
epoch of it; November 19th, 1767 (report of Committee on it, under
Radzivil's and Russia's coercion), was another: first and last it
took about five months baking in Diet. Diet met Oct. 4th, 1767,
Radzivil controlling as Grand-Marshal, and Russia as minatory
Phantom controlling Radzivil; Diet, after adjournments, after one
long adjournment, disappeared 5th March, 1768; and of work
mentionable it had done this of the Dissidents only. That of
contributing to "the sovereign contempt with which King Stanislaus
is regarded by all ranks of men," is hardly to be called peculiar
work or peculiarly mentionable.
At this point, to relieve the reader's mind, and, at any rate, as
the date is fully come, we will introduce a small NEWSPAPER ARTICLE
from a very high hand, little guessed till long afterwards as the
writer,--namely, from King Friedrich's own. It does not touch on
the Dissident Question, or the Polish troubles; but does, in a
back-handed way, on Prussian Rumors rising about them; and may
obliquely show more of the King's feeling on that subject than we
quite suppose. It seems the King had heard that the Berlin people
were talking and rumoring of "a War being just at hand;"
whereupon--"MARCH 5th, 1767, IN THE VOSSISCHE ZEITUNG (Voss's
Chronicle), No. 28," an inquisitive Berlin public read
as follows:--
"We are advised from Potsdam, that, on the 27th of February,
towards evening, the sky began to get overcast; black clouds,
presaging a tempest of unexampled fury, covered all the horizon:
the thunder, with its lightnings, forked bolts of amazing
brilliancy, burst out; and, under its redoubled peals, there
descended such a torrent of hail as within man's memory had not
been seen. Of two bullocks yoked in their plough, with which a
peasant was hastening home, one was struck on the head by a piece
of it, and killed outright. Many of the common people were wounded
in the streets; a brewer had his arm broken. Roofs are destroyed by
the weight of this hail; all the windows that looked windward while
it fell were broken. In the streets, hailstones were found of the
size of pumpkins (CITROUILLES), which had not quite melted two
hours after the storm ceased. This singular phenomenon has made a
very great impression. Scientific people say, the air had not
buoyancy enough to support these solid masses when congealed to
ice; that the small hailstones in these clouds getting so lashed
about in the impetuosity of the winds, had united the more the
farther they fell, and had not acquired that enormous magnitude
till comparatively near the earth. Whatever way it may have
happened, it is certain that occurrences of that kind are rare, and
almost without example." [VOSSISCHE ZEITUNG, ubi supra:
OEuvres de Frederic, xv. 204.]
Another singularity is, "Professor Johann Daniel Titius of
Wittenberg," who teaches NATURAL PHILOSOPHY in that famous
University, one may judge with what effect, wrote a Monograph on
this unusual Phenomenon! [Rodenbeck (ii. 285) gives the Title of
it, "CONSIDERATIONS ON THE POTSDAM HAIL OF LAST YEAR
(Wittenberg, 1768)."]
CONFEDERATION OF BAR ENSUES, ON THE PER-CONTRA SIDE (March 28th, 1768);
AND, AS FIRST RESULT OF ITS ACHIEVEMENTS (October 6th, 1768),
A TURK-RUSSIAN WAR.
The Confederation of Radom, and its victorious Diet, had hardly
begun their Song of Triumph, when there ensued on the per-contra
side a flaming CONFEDERATION OF BAR;--which, by successive stages,
does at last burn out the Anarchies of Poland, and reduce them to
ashes. Confederation of Bar; and then, as progeny of that, for and
against, such a brood of Confederations, orthodox, heterodox, big,
little, short-lived, long-lived, of all complexions and degrees of
noisy fury, potent, at any rate, each of them for murder and arson,
within a certain radius, as the Earth never saw before. Now was the
time of those inextricable marchings (as inroads and outroads)
through the Lithuanian Bogs, of those death-defiant, unparalleled
exploits, skirmishings, scaladings, riding by the edge of
precipices, of Pulawski, Potocki and others,--in which Rulhiere
loses himself and turns on his axis, amid impatient readers.
For the Russian troops (summoned by a trembling Stanislaus and his
Senate, in terms of Treaty 1764), and in more languid manner, the
Stanislaus soldiery, as per law of the case, proceeded to strike
in,--generally, my impression was, with an eye to maintain the
King's Peace and keep down murder and arson:--and sure enough, the
small bodies of drilled Russians blew an infuriated orthodox Polack
chivalry to right and left at a short notice; but as to the
Constable's Peace or King's, made no improvement upon that, far the
reverse. It is certain the Confederate chivalry were driven about,
at a terrible rate,--over the Turk frontier for shelter; began to
appeal to the Grand Turk, in desperate terms: "Brother of the Sun
and Moon, saw you ever such a chance for finishing Russia?
Polack chivalry is Orthodox Catholic, but also it is Anti-Russian!"
The Turk beginning to give ear to it, made the matter pressing and
serious. Here, more specifically, are some features and successive
phases,--unless the reader prefer to skip.
"BAR, MARCH, 1768. The Confederation of Radom, as efficient
preliminary, and chief agent in that Diet of emancipation to the
Dissident human mind, might long have been famous over Poland and
the world; but there instantly followed as corollary to it a
CONFEDERATION OF BAR, which quite dimmed the fame of Radom, and
indeed of all Confederations prior or posterior! As the
Confederation of Bar and its Doings, or rather sufferings and
tragical misdoings and undoings, still hang like fitful
spectralities, or historical shadows, of a vague ghastly
complexion, in the human memory, one asks at least: Since they were
on this Planet, tell us where? Bar is in the Waiwodship Podol (what
we call Podolia), some 400 miles southeast of Warsaw; not far from
the Dniester River:--not far very from that mystery of the
Dniester, the Zaporavian Cossacks,--from those rapids or cataracts
(quasi-cataracts of the Dniester, with Islands in them, where those
Cossack robbers live unassailable):--across the Dniester lies
Turkey, and its famed Fortress of Choczim. This is a commodious
station for Polish Gentlemen intending mutiny by law.
"MARCH 8th, 1768, Three short days after the Diet of Radom had done
its fine feat, and retired to privacy, news came to Warsaw, That
Podolia and the Southern parts are all up, confederating with the
highest animation; in hot rage against such decision of a Diet,
contrary to Holy Religion and to much else; and that the said
decision will have to fight for itself, now that it has done
voting. This interesting news is true; and goes on intensifying and
enlarging itself, one dreadful Confederation springing up, and then
another and ever another, day after day; till at last we hear that
on the 27th of the month, MARCH 27th, 1768, at Bar, a little Town
on the Southern or Turkish Frontier, all these more or less
dreadful Confederations have met by delegates, and coalesced into
one 'Confederatiou of Bar,'--which did surely prove dreadful
enough, to itself especially, in the months now ensuing!"
No history of Bar Confederation shall we dream of; far be such an
attempt from us. It consists of many Confederations, and out of
each, PRO and CONTRA, spring many. Like the Lernean Hydra, or even
Hydras in a plural condition. A many-headed dog: and how many
whelps it had,--I cannot give even the cipher of them, or I would!
One whelp Confederation, that of Cracow, is distinguished by having
frequently or generally been "drunk;" and of course its procedures
had often a vinous character. [In HERMANN (v. 431-448);
and especially in RULHIERE (ii. livre 8 et seq.), details in
superabundance.] I fancy to have read somewhere that the number of
them was one hundred and twenty-five. The rumor and the furious
barking of Bar and its whelps goes into all lands: such rabid loud
baying at mankind and the moon; and then, under Russia's treatment,
such shrill yelping and shrieking, was not heard in the world
before, though perhaps it has since.
Poor BAR'S exploits in the fighting way were highly inconsiderable;
all on the same scale; and spread over such a surface of country,
mostly unknown, as renders it impossible to give them head-room,
were you never so unfurnished. They can be read in eloquent
Rulhiere; but by no mortal held in memory. Anarchy is not a thing
to be written of; a Lernean Hydra, several Lernean Hydras, in
chaotic genesis, getting their heads lopped off, and at the same
time sprouting new ones in such ratio, where is the Zoologist that
will give account of it? There was not anything considerable of
fighting; but of bullying, plundering, murdering and being
murdered, a frightful amount. There are seizures of castles,
convents, defensible houses; marches at a rate like that of
antelopes, through the Lithuanian parts, boggy, hungry, boundless,
opening to the fancy the Infinitude of Peat, in the solid and the
fluid state. This, perhaps, is the finest species of feats, though
they never lead to anything. There are heroes famed for
these marches.
The Pulawskis, for example,--four of them, Lawyer people,--showed
much activity, and a talent for impromptu soldiering, in that kind.
The Magnates of the Confederation, I was surprised to learn, had
all quitted it, the instant it came to strokes: "You Lawyer people,
with your priests and orthodox peasantries, you do the fighting
part; ours is the consulting!" And except Potocki (and he worse
than none), there is presently not a Magnate of them left in
Poland,--the rest all gone across the Austrian Border, to Teschen,
to Bilitz, a handy little town and domain in that Duchy of
Teschen;--and sit there as "Committee of Government:" much at their
ease in comparison, could they but agree among themselves, which
they cannot. Bilitz is one of the many domains of Magnate
Sulkowski:--do readers recollect the Sulkowski who at one time
"declared War" on King Friedrich; and was picked up, both War and
he, so compendiously by General Goltz, and locked in Glogau to
cool? This is the same Sulkowski; much concerned now in these
matters; a rich Magnate, glad to see his friends about him as
Governing Committee; but gets, and gives, a great deal of vexation
in it, the element proving again too hot!--
I said there were four famed Pulawskis; [Hermann, v. 465.] a
father, once Advocate in Warsaw, with three sons and a nephew;
who, though extremely active people, could do no good whatever.
The father Pulawski had the fine idea of introducing the British
Constitution; clothing Poland wholly in British tailorage, and so
making it a new Poland: but he never could get it done. This poor
gentleman died in Turkish prison, flung into jail at
Constantinople, on calumnious accusation and contrivance by a rival
countryman; his sons and nephew, poor fellows, all had their fame,
more or less, in the Cause of Freedom so called; but no other
profit in this world, that I could hear of. Casimir, the eldest
son, went to America; died there, still in the Cause of Freedom so
called; Fort Pulawski, in the harbor of Charleston (which is at
present, on very singular terms, RE-engaged in the same so-called
Cause!), was named in memory of this Casimir. He had defended
Czenstochow (if anybody knew what Czenstochow was, or could find it
in the Polish map); and it was also he that contrived that
wonderful plan of suddenly snapping up King Stanislaus from the
streets of Warsaw one night, ["3d November, 1771."] and of locking
him away (by no means killing him), as the source of all our woes.
O my Pulawskis, men not without manhood, what a bedlam of a Time
have you and I fallen into, and what Causes of Freedom it has got
in hand!
Bar, a poor place, with no defences but a dry ditch and some
miserable earthworks, the Confederates had not the least chance to
maintain; Kaminiec, the only fortress of the Province, they never
even got into, finding some fraction of royal soldiery who stood
for King Stanislaus there, and who fired on the Confederates when
applied to. Bar a small Russian division, with certain Stanislaus
soldieries conjoined, took by capitulation; and (date not given)
entered in a victorious manner. The War-Epic of the Confederates,
which Rulhiere sings at such length, is blank of meaning.
Of "Cloister Czenstochow," a famed feat of Pulawski's, also without
result, I could not from my Rulhiere discover (what was altogether
an illuminative fact to me!) that the date of Czenstochow was not
till 1771. A feat of "Cloister BERDICZOW," almost an exact
facsimile by the same Pulawski, also resultless, I did, under
Hermann's guidance, at once find;--and hope the reader will be
satisfied to accept it instead: Cloister Berdiczow, which lies in
the Palatinate of Kiow; and which has a miraculous Holy Virgin, not
less venerated far and wide in those eastern parts, than she of
Cloister Czenstochow in the western: THIS Cloister Berdiczow and
its salutary Virgin, Pulawski (the Casimir, now of Charleston
Harbor) did defend, with about 1,000 men, in a really obstinate
way, The Monastery itself had in it gifts of the faithful,
accumulated for ages; and all the richest people in those
Provinces, Confederate or not, had lodged their preciosities there,
as in an impregnable and sure place, in those times of trouble.
Intensely desirous, accordingly, the Russians were to take it, but
had no cannon; desperately resolute Pulawski and his 1,000 to
defend. Pulawski and his 1,000 fired intensely, till their cannon-
balls were quite done; then took to firing with iron-work, and hard
miscellanies of every sort, especially glad when they could get a
haul of glass to load with;--and absolutely would not yield till
famine came; though the terms offered were good,--had they
been kept.
So that Pulawski, it would appear, did Two Cloister Defences?
Two, each with a miraculous Holy Virgin; an eastern, and then a
westerly. This of Berdiczow, not dated to me farther, is for
certain of the year 1768; and Pulawski, owing to famine, did yield
here. In 1771, at miraculous Cloister Czenstochow, in the western
parts, Pulawski did an external feat, or consented to see it done,
--that of trying to snuff out poor King Stanislaus on the streets
(3d November, 10 P.M., "miraculously" in vain, as most readers
know),--which brought its obloquies and troubles on the Defender of
Czenstochow. Obloquies and troubles: but as to surrendering
Czenstochow on call of obloquy, or of famine itself, Pulawski would
not, not he for his own part; but solemnly left his men to do it,
and walked away by circuitous uncertain paths, which end in
Charleston Harbor, as we have seen. [At Savannah, in a stricter
sense. "Perished at the Siege [futile attempt to storm, by the
French, which they called a Siege] of Savannah, 9th October,
1779."] Defence of Czenstochow in 1771 shall not concern us
farther. Truly these two small defences of monasteries by Pulawski
are almost all, I do not say of glorious, but even of creditable or
human, that reward the poor wanderer in that Polish Valley of
Jehoshaphat, much of it peat-country; wherefore I have, as before,
marked the approximate localities, approximate dates, for behoof of
ingenuous readers.
The Russians, ever since 1764, from the beginnings of those
Stanislaus times, are pledged to maintain peace in Poland; and it
is they that have to deal with this affair,--they especially, or
almost wholly, poor Stanislaus having scarcely any power, military
or other, and perhaps being loath withal. There was more of
investigating and parleying, bargaining and intriguing, than of
fighting, on Stanislaus's part. "June 11th, 1768," says a Saxon
Note from Warsaw, "Mokranowski, Stanislaus's General [the same that
was with Friedrich], has been sent down to Bar to look into those
Confederates. Mokranowski does not think there are above 8,000 of
them; about 3,000 have got their death from Russian castigation.
The 8,000 might be treated with, only Russians are so dreadfully
severe, especially so intent on wringing money from them.
Confederates have been complaining to the Turk; Turk ambiguous;
gives them no definite ground of hope. 'What then, is your hope?'
I inquired. 'Little or none, except in Heaven,' several answered:
'it is for our religion and our liberty:' religion cut to pieces by
this Dissident Toleration-blasphemy; liberty ditto by the Russian
guarantee of peace among us: 'what can we do but trust in God and
our own despair?'" ["Essen's Report, 11th June, 1768" (in HERMANN,
v. 441).] "Prave worts, Ancient Pistol,"--but much destitute of
sense, and not to be realized in present circumstances. Here is
something much more critical:--
JUNE-JULY, 1768. "The peasants in the Southern regions, Palatinates
Podol, Kiow, Braclaw, called UKRAINE or Border-Country by the
Poles, are mostly of Greek and other schismatic creeds. Their Lords
are of an orthodox religion, and not distinguished by mild
treatment of such Peasantry, upon whom civil war and plunder have
been latterly a sore visitation. To complete the matter, the
Confederates in certain quarters, blown upon by fanatical priests,
set about converting these poor peasants, or forcing them, at the
point of the bayonet, to swear that they adopt the 'Greek united
rite,' which I suppose to be a kind of half-way house towards
perfect orthodoxy. In one Village, which was getting converted in
this manner, the military party seemed to be small; the Village
boiled over upon it; trampled orthodoxy and military both under
foot, in a violent and sanguinary manner; and was extremely
frightened when it had done. Extremely frightened, not the Village
only, but the schismatic mind generally in those parts, dreading
vengeance for such a paroxysm. But the atrocious Russians whispered
them, 'We are here to protect you in your religions and rights, in
your poor consciences and skins.' Upon which hint of the atrocious
Russians, the schismatic mind and population one and all rose;
and, 'with the cannibal's ferocity, gave way to their appetite
for plunder!' ...
"Nay, the Russian Government [certain Russian Officials hard
pressed] had invited the Zaporavian Cossacks to step over from
their Islands in the Dniester, and assist in defending their
Religion [true Greek, of course]; who at once did so; and not only
extinguished the last glimmer of Confederation there, but
overwhelmed the Country, thousands on thousands of them, attended
by revolted peasants,--say a 20,000 of peasants under command of
these Zaporavians,--who went about plundering and burning.
That they plundered the Jew pot-houses of their brandy, and drank
it, was a small matter. Very furious upon Jews, upon Noblemen,
Landlords, upon Catholic Priests. 'On one tree [tree should have
been noted] was found hanged a specimen of each of those classes,
with a Dog adjoined, as fit company.' In one little Town, Town of
HUMAN [so called in that foreign dialect], getting some provocation
or other, they set to massacring; and if brandy were plentiful, we
can suppose they made short work. By the lowest computation the
number of slain Jews and Catholics amounted to 10,000 odd [Hermann,
v. 444; Rulhiere, iii. 93.]--Rulhiere says '50,000, by some
accounts 200,000.'" This I guess to have been at its height about
the end of June; this leads direct to the Catastrophe, as will
presently be seen.
Foreign States don't seem to pay much attention,--indeed, what sane
person would like to interfere, or hope to do it with profit?
France, Austria, both wish well to Poland, at least ill to Russia;
Choiseul has no finance, can do nothing but intrigue, and stir up
trouble everywhere: a devout Kaiserinn goes with Holy Church, and
disapproves of these Dissident Tolerations: it is remarked that all
through 1768 the Confederates of Bar are permitted to retire over
the Austrian Frontier into Austrian Silesia, and find themselves
there in safety. Permitted to buy arms, to make preparations, issue
orders: at Sulkowski's Bilitz, in the Duchy of Teschen, supreme
Managing Committee sits there; no Kaunitz or Official person
meddling with it. About the beginning of next year (1769), it is,
ostensibly, a little discountenanced; and obliged to go to Eperjes,
on the Hungarian Frontier [See Busching: for Eperjes, ii. 1427;
for Bilitz, viii. 885.] (as a more decent or less conspicuous
place),--such trouble now rising; a Turk War having broken out,
momentous not to the Confederation alone. March, 1769, the ever-
intriguing Choiseul--fancy with what rapturous effect--had sent
some kind of Agent or Visitor to Teschen; Vergennes in Turkey, from
the beginning of these things, has been plying night and day his
diplomatic bellows upon every live-coal ("I who myself kindled this
Turk-War!" brags he afterwards);--not till next year (1770) did
Choiseul send his Dumouriez to the Bilitz neighborhoods; not till
next again, when Choiseul was himself out, [Thrown out "2d
December, 1770,"--by Louis's NEW Pompadour.] did his Viomenil come:
[Hermann, v. 469-471; in RULHIERE (iv. 241-289) account of
Dumouries and his fencings and spyings, still more of Viomenil, who
had "French Volunteers," and did some bits of real fighting on the
small scale.] neither of whom, by their own head alone, without
funds, without troops, could do other than with fine effort make
bad worse.
It is needless continuing such a subject. Here is one glimpse two
years later, and it shall be our last: "NEAR LUBLIN, 25th
SEPTEMBER, 1770. It is frightful, all this that is passing in these
parts,--about the Town of Labun, for example. The dead bodies
remain without burial; they are devoured by the dogs and the pigs.
... Everywhere reigns Pestilence; nor do we fear contagion so much
as famine. Offer 100 ducats for a fowl or for a bit of bread, I
swear you won't get it. General von Essen [Russian, we will hope]
has had to escape from Laticzew, then from" some other place,
"Pestilence chasing him everywhere."
To apply to the Turks,--afflicted Polish Patriots prostrating
themselves with the hope of despair, "Save us, your sublime
Clemency; throw a ray of pity on us, Brother of the Sun and Moon:
oh, chastise our diabolic oppressors!"--this was one of the first
resources of the Bar Confederates. The Turks did give ear;
not inattentive, though pretending to be rather deaf. M. de
Vergennes,--of whose "diplomatic bellows" we just heard (in fact,
for diligence in this Turk element, in this young time, the like of
him was seldom seen; we knew him long afterwards as a diligent old
gentleman, in French-Revolution days),--M. de Vergennes zealously
supports; zealous to let loose the Turk upon Anti-French parties.
The Turks seem to wag their heads, for some time; and their
responses are ambiguous. For some time, not for long. Here, fast
enough, comes, in disguised shape, the Catastrophe itself, ye poor
plaintive Poles!
JULY-OCTOBER, 1768. Those Zaporavian and other Cossacks, with
20,000 peasants plundering about on both sides of the Dniester, had
set fire to the little Town of Balta, which is on the south side,
and belongs to the Turks: a very grave accident, think all
political people, think especially the Foreign Excellencies at
Warsaw, when news of it arrives. Burning of Balta, not to be
quenched by the amplest Russian apologies, proved a live-coal at
Constantinople; and Vergennes says, he set population and Divan on
fire by it: a proof that the population and Divan had already been
in a very inflammable state. Not a wise Divan, though a zealous.
Plenty of fury in these people; but a sad deficiency of every other
faculty. They made haste, in their hot humor, to declare War (6th
October, 1768); [Hermann, v. 608-611.] not considering much how
they would carry it on. Declared themselves in late Autumn,--as if
to give the Russians ample time for preparing; those poor Turks
themselves being as yet ready with nothing, and even the season for
field-operations being over.
King Friedrich, who has still a Minister at the Porte, endeavored
to dissuade his old Turk friends, in this rash crisis; but to no
purpose; they would listen to nothing but Vergennes and their own
fury. Friedrich finds this War a very mad one on the part of his
old Turk friends; their promptitude to go into it (he has known
them backward enough when their chances were better!), and their
way of carrying it on, are alike surprising to him. He says:
"Catharine's Generals were unacquainted with the first elements of
Castrametation and Tactic; but the Generals of the Sultan had a
still more prodigious depth of ignorance; so that to form a correct
idea of this War, you must figure a set of purblind people, who, by
constantly beating a set of altogether blind, end by gaining over
them a complete mastery." [ OEuvres de Frederic,
italic> vi. 23, 24.] This, as Friedrich knows, is what Austria
cannot suffer; this is what will involve Austria and Russia, and
Friedrich along with them, in-- Friedrich, as the matter gradually
unfolds itself, shudders to think what. The beginnings of this War
were perhaps almost comical to the old Soldier-King; but as it
gradually developed itself into complete shattering to pieces of
the stupid Blind by the ambitious Purblind, he grew abundantly
serious upon it.
It is but six months since Polish Patriotism, so effulgent to its
own eyes in Orthodoxy, in Love of glorious Liberty, confederated at
Bar, and got into that extraordinary whirlpool, or cesspool, of
miseries and deliriums we have been looking at; and now it has
issued on a broad highway of progress,--broad and precipitous,--and
will rapidly arrive at the goal set before it. All was so rapid, on
the Polish and on the Turkish part. The blind Turks, out of mere
fanaticism and heat of humor, have rushed into this adventure;--and
go rushing forward into a series of chaotic platitudes on the huge
scale, and mere tragical disasters, year after year, which would
have been comical, had they not been so hideous and sanguinary:
constant and enormous blunders on the Turk part, issuing in
disasters of like magnitude; which in the course of Two Campaigns
had quite finished off their Polish friends, in a very unexpected
way; and had like to have finished themselves off, had not drowned
Poland served as a stepping-stone.
Not till March 26th, 1769, six months after declaring in such
haste, did the blind Turks "display their Banner of Mahomet," that
is, begin in earnest to assemble and make ready. Nor were the
Russians shiningly strategic, though sooner in the field,--a Prince
Galitzin commanding them (an extremely purblind person);
till replaced by Romanzow, our old Colberg acquaintance, who saw
considerably better. Galitzin, early in the season, made a rush on
Choczim (ChoTzim), the first Turk Fort beyond the Dniester;
and altogether failed,--not by Turk prowess, but by his own
purblind mal-arrangements (want of ammunition, want of bread, or I
will forget what);--which occasioned mighty grumblings in Russia:
till in a month or two, by favor of Fortune and blindness of the
Turk, matters had come well round again; and Galitzin, walking up
to Choczim the second time, found there was not a Turk in the
place, and that Choczim was now his on those uncommonly easy terms!
Instead of farther details on such a War,--the shadow or reflex of
which, as mirrored in the Austrian mind, has an importance to
Friedrich and us; but the self or substance of which has otherwise
little or none,--we will close here with a bit of Russian satire on
it, which is still worth reading. The date is evidently Spring,
1769; the scene what we are now treating of: Galitzin obliged to
fall back from Choczim; great rumor--"What a Galitzin; what a Turk
War his, in contrast to the last we had!" [Turk War of 1736-1739,
under Munnich (supra, vii. 81-126).]--no Romanzow yet appointed in
his room. And here is a small Manuscript, which was then
circulating fresh and new in Russian Society; and has since gone
over all the world (though mostly in an uncertain condition, in old
Jest-Books and the like), as a genuine bit of CAVIARE from those
Northern parts:--
MANUSCRIPT CIRCULATING IN RUSSIAN SOCIETY. Galitzin, much grieved
about Choczim, could not sleep; and, wandering about in his tent,
overheard, one night, a common soldier recounting his dream to the
sentry outside the door.
"A curious dream," said the soldier: "I dreamt I was in a battle;
that I got my head cut off; that I died; and, of course, went to
Heaven. I knocked at the door: Peter came with a bunch of Keys;
and made such rattling that he awoke God; who started up in haste,
asking, 'What is the matter?' 'Why,' says Peter, 'there is a great
War on earth between the Russians and the Turks.' 'And who commands
my Russians?' said the Supreme Being. 'Count Munnich,' answered
Peter. 'Very well; I may go to sleep again!'--But this was not the
end of my dream," continued the soldier; "I fell asleep and dreamt
again, the very same as before, except that the War was not Count
Munnich's, but the one we are now in. Accordingly, when God asked,
'Who commands my Russians?' Peter answered, 'Prince Galitzin.'
'Galitzin? Then get me my boots!' said the [Russian] Supreme
Being." [W. Richardson (then at Petersburg, Tutor to Excellency
Cathcart's Children; afterwards Professor at Glasgow, and a man of
Some reputation in his old age), Anecdotes of the Russian
Empire, in a Series of Letters written a few years ago from St.
Petersburg (London, 1784), p. 110: date of this Letter
is "17th October, 1769."]
Chapter IV.
PARTITION OF POLAND.
These Polish phenomena were beginning to awaken a good deal of
attention, not all of it pleasant, on the part of Friedrich.
From the first he had, as usual, been a most clear-eyed observer of
everything; and found the business, as appears, not of tragical
nature, but of expensive-farcical, capable to shake the diaphragm
rather than touch the heart of a reflective on-looker. He has a
considerable Poem on it,--WAR OF THE CONFEDERATES by title (in the
old style of the PALLADION, imitating an unattainable JEANNE
D'ARC),--considerable Poem, now forming itself at leisure in his
thoughts, ["LA GUERRE DES CONFEDERES [ OEuvres,
italic> xiv. 183 et seq.], finished in November, 1771."] which
decidedly takes that turn; and laughs quite loud at the rabid
fanaticisms, blusterous inanities and imbecilities of these noisy
unfortunate neighbors:--old unpleasant style of the PALLADION and
PUCELLE; but much better worth reading; having a great deal of
sharp sense in its laughing guise, and more of real Historical
Discernment than you will find in any other Book on that
delirious subject.
Much a laughing-stock to this King hitherto, such a "War of the
Confederates,"--consisting of the noisiest, emptiest bedlam
tumults, seasoned by a proportion of homicide, and a great deal of
battery and arson. But now, with a Russian-Turk War springing from
it, or already sprung, there are quite serious aspects rising amid
the laughable. By Treaty, this War is to cost the King either a
12,000 of Auxiliaries to the Czarina, or a 72,000 pounds (480,000
thalers) annually; [ OEuvres de Frederic,
vi. 13.]--which latter he prefers to pay her, as the alternative:
not an agreeable feature at all; but by no means the worst feature.
Suppose it lead to Russian conquests on the Turk, to Austrian
complicacies, to one knows not what, and kindle the world round one
again! In short, we can believe Friedrich was very willing to stand
well with next-door neighbors at present, and be civil to Austria
and its young Kaiser's civilities.
FIRST INTERVIEW BETWEEN FRIEDRICH AND KAISER JOSEPH
(Neisse, 25th-28th August, 1769).
In 1766, the young Kaiser, who has charge of the Military
Department, and of little else in the Government, and is already a
great traveller, and enthusiastic soldier, made a pilgrimage over
the Bohemian and Saxon Battle-fields of the Seven-Years War.
On some of them, whether on all I do not know, he set up memorial-
stones; one of which you still see on the field of Lobositz;--of
another on Prag field, and of reverent salutation by Artillery to
the memory of Schwerin there, we heard long ago. Coming to Torgau
on this errand, the Kaiser, through his Berlin Minister, had
signified his "particular desire to make acquaintance with the King
in returning;" to which the King was ready with the readiest;--
only that Kaunitz and the Kaiserinn, in the interim, judged it
improper, and stopped it. "The reported Interview is not to take
place," Friedrich warns the Newspapers; "having been given up,
though only from courtesy, on some points of ceremonial."
["FRIEDRICH TO ONE OF HIS FOREIGN AMBASSADORS" (the common way of
announcing in Newspapers): Preuss, iv. 22 n.]
The young Kaiser felt a little huffed; and signified to Friedrich
that he would find a time to make good this bit of uncivility,
which his pedagogues had forced upon him. And now, after three
years, August, 1769, on occasion of the Silesian Reviews, the
Kaiser is to come across from his Bohemian businesses, and actually
visit him: Interview to be at Neisse, 25th August, 1769, for three
days. Of course the King was punctual, everybody was punctual, glad
and cordial after a sort,--no ceremony, the Kaiser, officially
incognito, is a mere Graf von Falkenstein, come to see his
Majesty's Reviews. There came with him four or five Generals,
Loudon one of them; Lacy had preceded: Friedrich is in the palace
of the place, ready and expectant. With Friedrich are: Prince
Henri; Prince of Prussia; Margraf of Anspach: Friedrich's Nephew
(Lady Craven's Margraf, the one remnant now left there); and some
Generals and Military functionaries, Seidlitz the notablest figure
of these. And so, FRIDAY, AUGUST 25th, shortly after noon-- But the
following Two Letters, by an Eye-witness, will be preferable;
and indeed are the only real Narrative that can be given:--
No. 1. ENGINEER LEFEBVRE TO PERPETUAL SECRETARY FORMEY
(at Berlin).
"NEISSE, 26th [partly 25th] August, 1769.
"MY MOST WORTHY FRIEND,-I make haste to inform you of the Kaiser's
arrival here at Neisse, this day, 25th August, 1769, at one in the
afternoon. The King had spent the morning in a proof Manoeuvre,
making rehearsal of the Manoeuvre that was to be. When the Kaiser
was reported just coming, the King went to the window of the grand
Episcopal Saloon, and seeing him alight from his carriage, turned
round and said, 'JE L'AI VU (I have seen him).' His Majesty then
went to receive him on the grand staircase [had hardly descended
three or four steps], where they embraced; and then his Majesty led
by the hand his august Guest into the Apartments designed for him,
which were all standing open and ready,"--which, however, the
august Guest will not occupy except with a grateful imagination,
being for the present incognito, mere Graf von Falkenstein, and
judging that THE THREE-KINGS Inn will be suitabler.
"Arrived in the Apartments, they embraced anew; and sat talking
together for an hour and half.--
[The talk, unknown to
Lefebvre, began in this strain. KAISER: "Now are my wishes
fulfilled, since I have the honor to embrace the greatest of Kings
and Soldiers." KING: "I look upon this day as the fairest of my
life; for it will become the epoch of uniting Two Houses which have
been enemies too long, and whose mutual interests require that they
should strengthen, not weaken one another." KAISER: "For Austria
there is no Silesia farther." [Preuss, v. 23; OEuvres de
Frederic, vi. 25, 26.] Talk, it appears, lasted an
hour and half.]
--"The Kaiser [continues our Engineer]
had brought with him the Prince of Sachsen-Teschen [his august
Brother-in-law, Duke of Teschen, son of the late Polish Majesty of
famous memory]: afterwards there came Feldmarschall Lacy, Graf von
Dietrichstein, General von Loudon," and three others of no account
to us. "At the King's table were the Kaiser, the Prince of Prussia
[dissolute young Heir-Apparent, of the polygamous tendency], Prince
Henri, the Margraf of Anspach [King's Nephew, unfortunate Lady-
Craven Margraf, ultimately of Hammersmith vicinity]; the above
Generals of the Austrian suite, and Generals Seidlitz and
Tauentzien. The rest of the Court was at two other tables." Of the
dinner itself an Outside Individual will say nothing.
"The Kaiser, having expressly requested the King to let him lodge
in an Inn (THREE KINGS), under the name of Graf von Falkenstein,
would not go into the carriage which had stood expressly ready to
conduct him thither. He preferred walking on foot [the loftily
scornful Incognito] in spite of the rain; it was like a lieutenant
of infantry stepping out of his quarters. Some moments after, the
King went to visit him; and they remained together from 5 in the
evening till 8. It was thought they would be present (ASSISTER) at
a Comic Opera which was to be played: but after waiting till 7
o'clock, the people received orders to go on with the Piece;"--both
Majesties did afterwards look in; but finding it bad, soon went
their way again. (MAJOR LEFEBVRE STOPS WRITING FOR THE NIGHT.)
"This morning, 26th, the Manoeuvre [rehearsed yesterday] has been
performed before both their Majesties; the troops, by way of
finish, filing past them in the highest order. The Kaiser
accompanied the King to his abode; after which he returned to his
own. This is all the news I have to-day: the sequel by next Post
[apparently a week hence). I am, and shall ever be,--your true
Friend, LEFEBVRE."
No. 2. SAME TO SAME.
"NEISSE, 2d September, 1769.
"MONSIEUR AND DEAREST FRIEND,--We had, as you heard, our first
Manoeuvre on Saturday, 26th, in presence of the Kaiser and the
King, and of the whole Court of each. That evening there was Opera;
which their Majesties honored by attending. Sunday was our Second
Manoeuvre; OPERETTE in the evening. Monday, 28th, was our last
Manoeuvre; at the end of which the two Majesties, without alighting
from horseback, embraced each other; and parted, protesting
mutually the most constant and inviolable friendship. One took the
road for Breslau; the other that of Konigsgratz. All the time the
Kaiser was here, they have been continually talking together, and
exhibiting the tenderest friendship,--from which I cannot but think
there will benefit result.
"I am almost in the mind of coming to pass this Winter at Berlin;
that I may have the pleasure of embracing you,--perhaps as
cordially as King and Kaiser here. I am, and shall always be, with
all my heart,--your very good Friend, "LEFEBVRE."
[Formey, Souvenirs d'un Citoyen, ii.
145-148.]
The Lefebvre that writes here is the same who was set to manage the
last Siege of Schweidnitz, by Globes of Compression and other fine
inventions; and almost went out of his wits because he could not do
it. An expert ingenious creature; skilful as an engineer; had been
brought into Friedrich's service by the late Balbi, during Balbi's
ascendency (which ended at Olmutz long ago). At Schweidnitz, and
often elsewhere, Friedrich, who had an esteem for poor Lefebvre,
was good to him; and treated his excitabilities with a soft hand,
not a rough. Once at Neisse (1771, second year after these
Letters), on looking round at the works done since last review, in
sight of all the Garrison he embraced Lefebvre, while commending
his excellent performance; which filled the poor soul with a now
unimaginable joy.
"HELAS," says Formey, "the poor Gentleman wrote to me of his
endless satisfaction; and how he hoped to get through his building,
and retire on half-pay this very season, thenceforth to belong to
the Academy and me; he had been Member for twenty years past."
With this view, thinks Formey, he most likely hastened on his
buildings too fast: certain it is, a barrack he was building
tumbled suddenly, and some workmen perished in the ruins.
"Enemies at Court suggested," or the accident itself suggested
without any enemy, "Has not he been playing false, using cheap bad
materials?"--and Friedrich ordered him arrest in his own
Apartments, till the question were investigated. Excitable Lefebvre
was like to lose his wits, almost to leap out of his skin.
"One evening at supper, he managed to smuggle away a knife; and, in
the course of the night, gave himself sixteen stabs with it;
which at length sufficed. The King said, 'He has used himself worse
than I should have done;' and was very sorry." Of Lefebvre's
scientific structures, globes of compression and the rest, I know
not whether anything is left; the above Two Notes, thrown off to
Formey, were accidentally a hit, and, in the great blank, may last
a long while.
The King found this young Kaiser a very pretty man; and could have
liked him considerably, had their mutual positions permitted.
"He had a frankness of manner which seemed natural to him," says
the King; "in his amiable character, gayety and great vivacity were
prominent features." By accidental chinks, however, one saw "an
ambition beyond measure" burning in the interior of this young man,
[ OEuvres de Frederic, (in Memoires
de 1763 jusqu'a 1775, a Chapter which yields the
briefest, and the one completely intelligible account we yet have
of those affairs), vi. 25.]--let an old King be wary. A three days,
clearly, to be marked in chalk; radiant outwardly to both; to a
certain depth, sincere; and uncommonly pleasant for the time.
King and Kaiser were seen walking about arm in arm. At one of the
Reviews a Note was brought to Friedrich: he read it, a Note from
her Imperial Majesty; and handing it to Kaiser Joseph, kissed it
first. At parting, he had given Joseph, by way of keepsake, a copy
of Marechal de Saxe's REVERIES (a strange Military Farrago,
dictated, I should think, under opium ["MES REVERIES; OUVRAGE
POSTHUME, par" &c. (2 vols. 4to: Amsterdam et Leipzig, 1757).]):
this Book lay continually thereafter on the Kaiser's night-table;
and was found there at his death, Twenty-one years hence,--not a
page of it read, the leaves all sticking together under their
bright gilding. [Preuss, iv. 24 n.]
It was long believed, by persons capable of seeing into millstones,
that, under cover of this Neisse Interview, there were important
Political negotiations and consultings carried on;--that here, and
in a Second Interview or Return-Visit, of which presently, lay the
real foundation of the Polish Catastrophe. What of Political passed
at the Second Interview readers shall see for themselves, from an
excellent Authority. As to what passed at the present ("mutual
word-of-honor: should England and France quarrel, we will stand
neutral" [ OEuvres de Frederic, ubi supra.]),
it is too insignificant for being shown to readers. Dialogues there
were, delicately holding wide of the mark, and at length coming
close enough; but, at neither the one Interview nor the other, was
Poland at all a party concerned,--though, beyond doubt, the Turk
War was; silently this first time, and with clear vocality on the
second occasion.
In spite of Galitzin's blunders, the Turk War is going on at a fine
rate in these months; Turks, by the hundred thousand, getting
scattered in panic rout:--but we will say nothing of it just yet.
Polish Confederation--horror-struck, as may be imagined, at its
auxiliary Brother of the Sun and Moon and his performances--is
weltering in violently impotent spasms into deeper and ever deeper
wretchedness, Friedrich sometimes thinking of a Burlesque Poem on
the subject;--though the Russian successes, and the Austrian
grudgings and gloomings, are rising on him as a very serious
consideration. "Is there no method, then, of allowing Russia to
prosecute its Turk War in spite of Austria and its umbrages?"
thinks Friedrich sometimes, in his anxieties about Peace in
Europe:--"If the Ukraine, and its meal for the Armies, were but
Russia's! At present, Austria can strike in there, cut off the
provisions, and at once put a spoke in Russia's wheel."
Friedrich tells us, "he (ON," the King himself, what I do not find
in any other Book) "sent to Petersburg, under the name of Count
Lynar, the seraphic Danish Gentleman, who, in 1757, had brought
about the Convention of Kloster-Zeven, a Project, or Sketch of
Plan, for Partitioning certain Provinces of Poland, in that view;"
--the Lynar opining, so far as I can see, somewhat as follows:
"Russia to lay hold of the essential bit of Polish Territory for
provisioning itself against the Turk, and allow to Austria and
Prussia certain other bits; which would content everybody, and
enable Russia and Christendom to extrude and suppress AD LIBITUM
that abominable mass of Mahometan Sensualism, Darkness and
Fanaticism from the fairest part of God's Creation." An excellent
Project, though not successful! "To which Petersburg, intoxicated
with its own outlooks on Turkey, paid not the least attention,"
says the King. [ OEuvres de Frederic, vi. 26.]
He gives no date to this curious statement; nor does anybody else
mention it at all; but we may fancy it to have been of Winter,
1769-1770,--and leave it with the curious, or the idly curious,
since nothing came of it now or afterwards.
POTSDAM, 20th-29th OCTOBER, 1769. Only two months after Neisse,
what kindles Potsdam into sudden splendor, Electress Marie-Antoine
makes a Visit of nine days to the King. "In July last," says a
certain Note of ours, "the Electress was invited to Berlin, to a
Wedding; 'would have been delighted to come, but letter of
invitation arrived too late. Will, however, not give up the plan of
seeing the great Friedrich.' Comes to Potsdam 20th-29th October.
Stays nine days; much delighted, both, with the visit.
'Magnificent palaces, pleasant gardens, ravishing concerts,
charming Princes and Princesses: the pleasantest nine days I ever
had in my life,' says the Electress. Friedrich grants, to her
intercession, pardon for some culprit. 'DIVA ANTONIA' he calls her
henceforth for some time; she him, 'PLUS GRAND DES MORTELS,'
'SALOMON DU NORD,' and the like names." [ OEuvres de
Frederic, (CORRESPONDANCE AVEC L'ELECTRICE MARIE-
ANTOINE), xxiv. 179-186.] Next year too (September 26th-October
5th, 1770), the bright Lady made a second visit; [Rodenbeck, iii.
24.] no third,--the times growing too political, perhaps; the times
not suiting. The Correspondence continues to the end; and is really
pretty. And would be instructive withal, were it well edited. For
example,--if we might look backwards, and shoot a momentary spark
into the vacant darkness of the Past,--Friedrich wrote (the year
before this):--
POTSDAM, 3d MAY, 1768. ... "Jesuits have got all cut adrift: A dim
rumor spreads that his Holiness will not rest with that first
anathema, but that a fulminating Bull is coming out against the
Most Christian, the Most Catholic and the Most Faithful. If that be
so, my notion is, Madam, that the Holy Father, to fill his table,
will admit the Defender of the Faith [poor George III.] and your
Servant; for it does not suit a Pope to sit solitary. ...
"A pity for the human race, Madam, that men cannot be tranquil,--
but they never and nowhere can! Not even the little Town of
Neufchatel but has had its troubles; your Royal Highness will be
astonished to learn how. A Parson there [this was above seven years
ago, in old Marischal's reign [See Letters to Marischal, "Leipzig,
9th March, 1761," "Breslau, 14th May, 1762:" in OEuvres de
Frederic, xx. 282, 287.]] had set forth in a sermon,
That considering the immense mercy of God, the pains of Hell could
not last forever. The Synod shouted murder at such scandal; and has
been struggling, ever since, to get the Parson exterminated.
The affair was of my jurisdiction; for your Royal Highness must
know that I am Pope in that Country;--here is my decision: Let the
parsons, who make for themselves a cruel and barbarous God, be
eternally damned, as they desire, and deserve; and let those
parsons, who conceive God gentle and merciful, enjoy the plenitude
of his mercy! However, Madam, my sentence has failed to calm men's
minds; the schism continues; and the number of the damnatory
theologians prevails over the others." ["April 2d, 1768" (a month
before this Letter to Madam), there is "riot at Neufchatel;
and Avocat Gardot [heterodox Parson's ADVOCATE] killed in it"
(Rodenbeck, ii. 303).]--Or again:--
POTSDAM, 1st DECEMBER, 1766. "At present I have with me my Niece
[Sister's Daughter, of Schwedt], the Duchess of Wurtemberg;
who remembers with pleasure to have had the happiness of seeing
your Royal Highness in former times. She is very unhappy and much
to be pitied; her Husband [Eugen of Wurtemberg, whom we heard much
of, and last at Colberg] gives her a deal of trouble: he is a
violent man, from whom she has everything to fear; who gives her
chagrins, and makes her no allowances. I try my best to bring him
to reason;"--but am little successful. Three years after this, "May
3d, 1769," we find Eugen, who once talked of running his august
Reigning Brother through the body, has ended by returning to
Stuttgard and him; where, or at Mumpelgard, his Apanage, he
continued thenceforth. And was Reigning Duke himself, long
afterwards, for two years, at the very end of his life.
["Succeeded," on his Brother Karl's death, "20th May, 1795;
died 23d December, 1797, age 75."] At this date of 1766, "my poor
Niece and he" have been married thirteen years, and have half a
score of children;--the eldest of them Czar Paul's Second Wife that
is to be, and Mother of the now Czars.
DECEMBER 17th, 1765. ... "I have had 12,360 houses and barns to
rebuild, and am nearly through with that. But how many other wounds
remain yet to be healed!"
JULY 22d, 1766. ... "Wedding festivities of Prince of Prussia.
Duchess of Kingston tipsy on the occasion!"--But we must not be
tempted farther. [ OEuvres de Frederic,
xxiv. 90-155.]
NEXT YEAR THERE IS A SECOND INTERVIEW; FRIEDRICH MAKING A
RETURN-VISIT DURING THE KAISER'S MORAVIAN REVIEWS (Camp of
Mahrisch-Neustadt, 3d-7th September, 1770).
The Russian-Turk especially in Second Campaign of it, "Liberation
of Greece," or, failing that, total destruction of the Turk Fleet
in Greek waters; conquest of Wallachia, as of Moldavia; in a word,
imminency of total ruin to the Turk by land and sea,--all this is
blazing aloft at such a pitch, in Summer, 1770, that a new
Interview upon it may well, to neighbors so much interested, seem
more desirable than ever. Interview accordingly there is to be:
3d September, and for four days following.
Kaunitz himself attends, this time; something of real business
privately probable to Kaunitz. Prince Henri is not there;
Prince Henri is gone to Sweden; on visit to his Sister, whom he has
not seen since boyhood: of which Visit there will be farther
mention. Present with the King were: [Rodenbeck, iii. 21.] the
Prince of Prussia (luckier somewhat in his second wedlock, little
red-colored Son and Heir born to him just a month ago);
[Friedrich Wilhelm III., "born 3d August, 1770."] Prince Ferdinand;
two Brunswick Nephews, ERBPRINZ whom we used to hear of, and
Leopold a junior, of whom we shall once or so. No Seidlitz this
time. Except Lentulus, no General to name. But better for us than
all Generals, in the Kaiser's suite, besides Kaunitz, was Prince de
Ligne,--who holds a PEN, as will appear.
"Liberation of the Greeks" had kindled many people, Voltaire among
the number, who is still intermittently in correspondence with
Friedrich: "A magnificent Czarina about to revivify that true
Temple of Mankind, or at least to sweep the blockhead Turks out of
it; what a prospect!" Friedrich is quite cool on Greece; not too
hot on any part of this subject, though intensely concerned about
it. Besides his ingenious Count-Lynar Project, and many other
businesses, Friedrich has just been confuting Baron d'Holbach's
Systeme de la Nature; ["EXAMEN CRITIQUE DU
SYSTEME DE LA NATURE [in OEuvres de Frederic,
ix. 153 et seq.], finished July, 1770."]--writing to Voltaire,
POTSDAM, 18th AUGUST, 1770, on this subject among others, he adds:
"I am going for Silesia, on the Reviews. I am to see the Kaiser,
who has invited me to his Camp in Mahren. That is an amiable and
meritorious Prince; he values your Works, reads them as diligently
as he can; is anything but superstitious: in brief, a Kaiser such
as Germany has not for a great while had. Neither he nor I have any
love for the blockhead and barbaric sort;--but that is no reason
for extirpating them: if it were, your Turks [oppressors of Greece]
would not be the only victims!" [ OEuvres de Frederic,
italic> xxiii. 165, 166.]
In a lengthy Letter, written by request, TO STANISLAUS, KING OF
POLAND, 1735, or at a distance of fifteen years from this Interview
at Neustadt, Prince de Ligne, who was present there, has left us
some record or loose lively reminiscence of it; [Prince de Ligne,
Memoires et Melanges Historiques (Par. 1827),
i. 3-21.]--sputtering, effervescing, epigrammatic creature, had he
confined himself to a faithful description, and burnt off for us,
not like a pretty fire-work, but like an innocent candle, or thing
for seeing by! But we must take what we have, and endeavor to be
thankful. By great luck, the one topic he insists on is Friedrich
and his aspect and behavior on the occasion: which is what, of all
else in it, we are most concerned with.
"You have ordered me, Sire [this was written for him in 1785], to
speak to you of one of the greatest men of this Age. You admire
him, though his neighborhood has done you mischief enough;
and, placing yourself at the impartial distance of History, feel a
noble curiosity on all that belongs to this extraordinary genius.
I will, therefore, give you an exact account of the smallest words
that I myself heard the great Friedrich speak. ... The I (LE JE) is
odious to me; but nothing is indifferent when"--Well, your account,
then, your account, without farther preambling, and in a more exact
way than you are wont!--
"By a singular chance, in 1770 [3d-7th September, if you would but
date], the Kaiser was [for the second time] enabled to deliver
himself to the personal admiration which he had conceived for the
King of Prussia; and these Two great Sovereigns were so well
together, that they could pay visits. The Kaiser permitted me to
accompany; and introduced me to the King: it was at Neustadt in
Moravia [MAHRISCH-NEUSTADT, short way from AUSTERLITZ, which is
since become a celebrated place]. I can't recollect if I had, or
had assumed, an air of embarrassment; but what I do well remember
is, that the Kaiser, who noticed my look, said to the King, 'He has
a timid expression, which I never observed in him before; he will
recover presently.' This he said in a graceful merry way; and the
two went out, to go, I believe, to the Play. On the way thither,
the King for an instant quitting his Imperial Friend, asked me if
my LETTER TO JEAN JACQUES [now an entirely forgotten Piece], which
had been printed in the Papers, was really by me? I answered,
'Sire, I am not famous enough to have my name forged' [as a certain
Other name has been, on this same unproductive topic]. He felt what
I meant. It is known that Horace Walpole took the King's name to
write his famous LETTRE A JEAN JACQUES [impossible to attend to the
like of it at present], which contributed the most to drive mad
that eloquent and unreasonable man of genius.
"Coming out of the Play, the Kaiser said to the King of Prussia:
'There is Noverre, the famous Composer of Ballets; he has been in
Berlin, I believe.' Noverre made thereupon a beautiful dancing-
master bow. 'Ah, I know him,' said the King: 'we saw him at Berlin;
he was very droll; mimicked all the world, especially our chief
Dancing Women, to make you split with laughing.' Noverre, ill
content with this way of remembering him, made another beautiful
third-position bow; and hoped possibly the King would say something
farther, and offer him the opportunity of a small revenge.
'Your Ballets are beautiful,' said the King to him; 'your Dancing
Girls have grace; but it is grace in a squattish form (DE LA GRACE
ENGONCEE). I think you make them raise their shoulders and their
arms too much. For, Monsieur Noverre, if you remember, our
principal Dancing Girl at Berlin wasn't so.' 'That is why she was
at Berlin, Sire,' replied Noverre [satirically, all he could].
"I was every day asked to sup with the King; too often the
conversation addressed itself to me. In spite of my attachment to
the Kaiser, whose General I like to be, but not whose D'Argens or
Algarotti, I had not beyond reason abandoned myself to that
feeling. When urged by the King's often speaking to me, I had to
answer, and go on talking. Besides, the Kaiser took a main share in
the conversation; and was perhaps more at his ease with the King
than the King with him. One day, they got talking of what one would
wish to be in this world; and they asked my opinion. I said, I
should like to be 'a Pretty Woman till thirty; then, till sixty, a
fortunate and skilful General;'--and not knowing what more to say,
but for the sake of adding something, whatever it might be, 'a
Cardinal till eighty.' The King, who likes to banter the Sacred
College, made himself merry on this; and the Kaiser gave him a
cheap bargain of Rome and its upholders (SUPPOTS). That supper was
one of the gayest and pleasantest I have ever seen. The Two
Sovereigns were without pretension and without reserve; what did
not always happen on other days; and the amiability of two men so
superior, and often so astonished to see themselves together, was
the agreeablest thing you can imagine. The King bade me come and
see him the first time he and I should have three or four hours to
ourselves.
"A storm such as there never was, a deluge compared with which that
of Deucalion was a summer shower, covered our Hills with water
[cannot say WHICH day of the four], and almost drowned our Army
while attempting to manoeuvre. The morrow was a rest-day for that
reason. At nine in the morning, I went to the King, and stayed till
one. He spoke to me of our Generals; I let him say, of his own
accord, the things I think of Marshals Lacy and Loudon; and I
hinted that, as to the others, it was better to speak of the dead
than of the living; and that one never can well judge of a General
who has not in his lifetime actually played high parts in War.
He spoke to me of Feldmarschall Daun: I said, 'that against the
French I believed he might have proved a great man; but that
against him [you], he had never quite been all he was; seeing
always his opponent as a Jupiter, thunder-bolt in hand, ready to
pulverize his Army.' That appeared to give the King pleasure:
he signified to me a feeling of esteem for Daun; he spoke favorably
of General Brentano [one of the Maxen gentlemen]. I asked his
reason for the praises I knew he had given to General Beck.
'Why (MAIS), I thought him a man of merit,' said the King. 'I do
not think so, Sire; he didn't do you much mischief.' 'He sometimes
took Magazines from me.' 'And sometimes let your Generals escape.'
(Bevern at REICHENBACH, for instance, do you reckon that his
blame?)--'I have never beaten him,' said the King. 'He never came
near enough for that: and I always thought your Majesty was only
appearing to respect him, in order that we might have more
confidence in him, and that you might give him the better slap some
day, with interest for all arrears.'
KING. "'Do you know who taught me the little I know? It was your
old Marshal Traun: that was a man, that one.--You spoke of the
French: do they make progress?'
EGO. "'They are capable of everything in time of war, Sire: but in
Peace,--their chiefs want them to be what they are not, what they
are not capable of being.'
KING. "'How, then; disciplined? They were so in the time of
M. de Turenne.'
EGO. "'Oh, it isn't that. They were not so in the time of M. de
Vendome, and they went on gaining battles. But it is now wished
that they become your Apes and ours; and that does n't suit them.'
KING. "'Perhaps so: I have said of their busy people (FAISEURS,'
St. Germains and Army-Reformers), 'that they would fain sing
without knowing music.'
EGO. "'Oh, that is true! But leave them their natural notes;
profit by their bravery, their alertness (LEGERETE), by their very
faults,--I believe their confusion might confuse their enemies
sometimes.'
KING. "'Well, yes, doubtless, if you have something to support
them with.'
EGO. "'Just so, Sire,--some Swiss and Germans.'
KING. "''T is a brave and amiable nation, the French; one can't
help loving them:--but, MON DIEU, what have they made of their Men
of Letters; and what a tone has now come up among them!
Voltaire, for example, had an excellent tone. D'Alembert, whom I
esteem in many respects, is too noisy, and insists too much on
producing effect in society:--was it the Men of Letters that gave
the Court of Louis XIV. its grace, or did they themselves acquire
it from the many amiable persons they found there? He was the
Patriarch of Kings, that one [in a certain sense, your Majesty!].
In his lifetime a little too much good was said of him; but a great
deal too much ill after his death.'
EGO. "'A King of France, Sire, is always the Patriarch of Clever
People (PATRIARCHE DES GENS D'ESPRIT:' You do not much mean this,
Monsieur? You merely grin it from the teeth outward?)
KING. "'That is the bad Number to draw: they are n't worth a doit
(NE VALENT PAS LE DIABLE, these GENS D'ESPRIT) at Governing.
Better be Patriarch of the Greek Church, like my sister the Empress
of Russia! That brings her, and will bring, advantages. There's a
religion for you; comprehending many Countries and different
Nations! As to our poor Lutherans, they are so few, it is not worth
while being their Patriarch.'
EGO. "'Nevertheless, Sire, if one join to them the Calvinists, and
all the little bastard Sects, it would not be so bad a post.
[The King appeared to kindle at this; his eyes were full of
animation. But it did not last when I said:] If the Kaiser were
Patriarch of the Catholics, that too wouldn't be a bad place.'
KING. "'There, there: Europe divided into Three Patriarchates.
I was wrong to begin; you see where that leads us: Messieurs, our
dreams are not those of the just, as M. le Regent used to say.
If Louis XIV. were alive, he would thank us.'
"All these patriarchal ideas, possible and impossible to realize,
made him, for an instant, look thoughtful, almost moody.
KING. "'Louis XIV., possessing more judgment than cleverness
(ESPRIT), looked out more for the former quality than for the
latter. It was men of genius that he wanted, and found. It could
not be said that Corneille, Bossuet, Racine and Conde were people
of the clever sort (DES HOMMES D'ESPRIT).'
EGO. "'On the whole, there is that in the Country which really
deserves to be happy, It is asserted that your Majesty has said, If
one would have a fine dream, one must--'
KING. "'Yes, it is true,--be King of France.'
EGO. "'If Francis I. and Henri IV. had come into the world after
your Majesty, they would have said, "be King of Prussia."'
KING. "'Tell me, pray, is there no citable Writer left in France?'
"This made me laugh; the King asked the reason. I told him, He
reminded me of the RUSSE A PARIS, that charming little piece of
verse of M. de Voltaire's; and we remembered charming things out of
it, which made us both laugh. He said,
KING. "'I have sometimes heard the Prince de Conti spoken of: what
sort of man is he?'
EGO. "'He is a man composed of twenty or thirty men. He is proud,
he is affable,'"--he is fiddle, he is diddle (in the seesaw
epigrammatic way, for a page or more); and is not worth pen and ink
from us, since the time old Marshal Traun got us rid of him,--home
across the Rhine, full speed, with Croats sticking on his skirts.
[Supra, viii. 475.]
"This portrait seemed to amuse the King. One had to captivate him
by some piquant detail; without that, he would escape you, give you
no time to speak. The success generally began by the first words,
no matter how vague, of any conversation; these he found means to
make interesting; and what, generally, is mere talk about the
weather became at once sublime; and one never heard anything vulgar
from him. He ennobled everything; and the examples of Greeks and
Romans, or of modern Generals, soon dissipated everything of what,
with others, would have remained trivial and commonplace.
"'Have you ever,' said he, 'seen such a rain as yesterday's? Your
orthodox Catholics will say, "That comes of having a man without
religion among us: what are we to do with this cursed (MAUDIT)
King; a Protestant at lowest?" for I really think I brought you bad
luck. Your soldiers would be saying, "Peace we have; and still is
this devil of a man to trouble us!"'
EGO. "'Certainly, if your Majesty was the cause, it is very bad.
Such a thing is only permitted to Jupiter, who has always good
reasons for everything; and it would have been in his fashion,
after destroying the one set by fire, to set about destroying the
others by water. However, the fire is at an end; and I did not
expect to revert to it.'
KING. "'I ask your pardon for having plagued you so often with
that; I regret it for the sake of all mankind. But what a fine
Apprenticeship of War! I have committed errors enough to teach you
young people, all of you, to do better. MON DIEU, how I love your
grenadiers! How well they defiled in my presence! If the god Mars
were raising a body-guard for himself, I should advise him to take
them hand over head. Do you know I was well pleased (BIEN CONTENT)
with the Kaiser last night at supper? Did you hear what he said to
me about Liberty of the Press, and the Troubling of Consciences (LA
GENE DES CONSCIENCES)? There will be bits of difference between his
worthy Ancestors and him, on some points!'
EGO. "'I am persuaded, he will entertain no prejudices on anything;
and that your Majesty will be a great Book of Instruction to him.'
KING. "'How adroitly he disapproved, without appearing to mean
anything, the ridiculous Vienna Censorship; and the too great
fondness of his Mother (without naming her) for certain things
which only make hypocrites. By the by, she must detest you, that
High Lady?'
EGO. "'Well, then, not at all. She has sometimes lectured me about
my strayings, but very maternally: she is sorry for me, and quite
sure that I shall return to the right path. She said to me, some
time ago, "I don't know how you do, you are the intimate friend of
Father Griffet; the Bishop of Neustadt has always spoken well of
you; likewise the Archbishop of Malines; and the Cardinal [name
Sinzendorf, or else not known to me, dignity and red hat
sufficiently visible] loves you much."'
"Why cannot I remember the hundred luminous things which escaped
the King in this conversation! It lasted till the trumpet at Head-
quarters announced dinner. The King went to take his place; and I
think it was on this occasion that, some one having asked why M. de
Loudon had not come yet, he said, 'That is not his custom:
formerly he often arrived before me. Please let him take this place
next me; I would rather have him at my side than opposite.'"
That is very pretty. And a better authority gives it, The King said
to Loudon himself, on Loudon's entering, "Mettez-vous
aupres de moi, M. de Loudon; j'aime mieux vous avoir a cote de moi
que vis-a-vis." He was very kind to Loudon;
"constantly called him M. LE FELDMARECHAL [delicate hint of what
should have been, but WAS not for seven years yet]; and, at
parting, gave him [as he did to Lacy also] two superb horses,
magnificently equipped." [Pezzl, Vie de Loudon,
italic> ii. 29.]
"Another day," continues Prince de Ligne, "the Manoeuvres being
over in good time, there was a Concert at the Kaiser's.
Notwithstanding the King's taste for music, he was pleased to give
me the preference; and came where I was, to enchant me with the
magic of his conversation, and the brilliant traits, gay and bold,
which characterize him. He asked me to name the general and
particular Officers who were present, and to tell him those who had
served under Marshal Traun: 'For, ENFIN,' he said, 'as I think I
have told you already, he is my Master; he corrected me in the
Schooling I was at.'
EGO. "'Your Majesty was very ungrateful, then; you never paid him
his lessons. If it was as your Majesty says, you should at least
have allowed him to beat you; and I do not remember that you
ever did.'
KING. "'I did not get beaten, because I did not fight.'
EGO. "'It is in this manner that the greatest Generals have often
conducted their wars against each other. One has only to look at
the two Campaigns of M. de Montecuculi and M. de Turenne, in the
Valley of the Rench [Strasburg Country, 1674 and 1675, two
celebrated Campaigns, Turenne killed by a cannon-shot in the last].
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