_ BOOK VI. DOUBLE-MARRIAGE PROJECT, AND CROWN-PRINCE, GOING ADRIFT UNDER THE STORM-WINDS. 1727-1730
(Chapter VI cont.)
CAUSES THIRD AND FOURTH:--AND CAUSE FIFTH, WORTH ALL THE OTHERS
Cause THIRD is the old story of recruiting; a standing cause between Prussia and all its neighbors. And the FOURTH cause is the tiniest of all: the "Meadow of Clamei." Meadow of Clamei, some square yards of boggy ground; which, after long study, one does find to exist in the obscurest manner, discoverable in the best Maps of Germany,--some twenty miles south of the Elbe river, on the boundary between Hanover-Luneburg and Prussia-Magdeburg, dubious on which side of the boundary. Lonesome unknown Patch of Meadow, lying far amid peaty wildernesses in those Salzwedel regions: unknown to all writing mortals as yet; but which threatens, in this summer of 1729, to become famous as Runnymead among the Meadows of History! And the FIFTH cause--In short, there was no real "cause" of the least magnitude; the effect was produced by the combination of many small and imaginary ones. For if there is a will to quarrel, we know there is a way. And perhaps the FIFTH namable cause, in efficiency worth all the others together, might be found in the Debates of the Smoking Parliament that season, were the Journal of its Proceedings extant! We gather symptoms, indisputable enough, of very diligent elaborations and insinuations there; and conclude that to have been the really effective cause. Clouds had risen between the two Courts; but except for the Tobacco-Parliament, there never could have thunder come from them.
Very soon after George's accession there began clouds to rise; the perfectly accomplished little George assuming a severe and high air towards his rustic Brother-in-Law. "We cannot stand these Prussian enlistments and encroachments; rectify these, in a high and severe manner!" says George to his Hanover Officials. George is not warm on his throne till there comes in, accordingly, from the Hanover Officials a Complaint to that effect, and even a List of Hanoverian subjects who are, owing to various injustices, now serving in the Prussian ranks: "Your Prussian Majesty is requested to return us these men!"
This List is dated 22d January, 1728; George only a few months old in his new authority as yet. The Prussian Majesty grumbles painfully responsive: "Will, with eagerness, do whatever is just; most surely! But is his Britannic Majesty aware? Hanover Officials are quite misinformed as to the circumstances;"--and does not return any of the men. Merely a pacific grumble, and nothing done in regard to the complaints. Then there is the Meadow of Clamei which we spoke of: "That belongs to Brandenburg, you say? Nevertheless the contiguous parts of Hanover have rights upon it. Some 'eight cart-loads of hay,' worth say almost 5 pounds or 10 pounds sterling: who is to mow that grass, I wonder?"--
Friedrich Wilhelm feels that all this is a pettifogging vexatious course of procedure; and that his little Cousin the COMODIANT is not treating him very like a gentleman. "Is he, your Majesty!" suggests the Smoking Parliament.--About the middle of March, Dubourgay hears Borck, an Official not of the Grumkow party, sulkily commenting on "the constant hostility of the Hanover Ministry to us" in all manner of points;---inquires withal, Could not Mecklenburg be somehow settled, his Prussian Majesty being somewhat anxious upon it? [Despatch, 17th March, 1729.] Anxious, yes: his poor Majesty, intensely meditative of such a matter in the night-watches, is capable of springing out of bed, with an "Eureka! I have found what will do!" and demanding writing materials. He writes or dictates in his shirt, the good anxious Majesty; despatches his Eureka by estafette on the wings of the wind: and your Townshend, your UNmeditative George, receives it with curt official negative, and a polite sneer. [Dubourgay, 12th-14th April, 1729; and the Answer from St. James's.]
A few weeks farther on, this is what the Newspapers report of Mecklenburg, in spite of his Prussian Majesty's desire to have some mercy shown the poor infatuated Duke: "The Elector of Hanover and the Duke of Brunswick-Wolfenbuttel," his Britannic Majesty and Squire in that sad business, "REFUSE to withdraw their forces out of Mecklenburg, or part with the Chest of the Revenues thereof, until an entire satisfaction be given them for the arrears of the Charges they have been at in putting the Sentence of the Aulic Council [Kaiser's REICHSHOFRATH and rusty thunder] into execution against the said Duke." [Salmon's
Chronological Historian (London, 1748,--a Book never to be quoted without caution), ii. 216;--date (translated into new style), 10th July, 1729.]
Matters grew greatly worse when George paid his first Visit to Hanover in character of King, early in the Summer of 1729. Part of his road lies through Prussian Territory: "Shall he have free post-horses, as his late Majesty was wont?" asks the Prussian Official person. "If he write to request them, yes," answers Friedrich Wilhelm; "if he don't write, no." George does not write; pays for his post-horses;--flourishes along to Hanover, in absolute silence towards his clownish Brother-in-Law. You would say he looks over the head of him, as if there were no such clown in existence;--he has never yet so much as notified his arrival. "What is this? There exists no Prussia, then, for little George?" Friedrich Wilhelm's inarticulate, interjectionary utterances, in clangorous metallic tone, we can fancy them, now and then; and the Tobacco-Parliament is busy! British Minister Dubourgay, steady old military gentleman, who spells imperfectly, but is intent to keep down mischief, writes at last to Hanover, submissively suggesting, "Could not, as was the old wont, some notification of the King's arrival be sent hither, which would console his Prussian Majesty?" To which my Lord Townshend answers, "Has not been the custom, I am informed [WRONG informed, your Lordship]; not necessary in the circumstances." Which is a high course between neighbors and royal gentlemen and kinsfolk. The Prussian Court hereupon likewise shuts its lips; no mention of the Hanoverian Court, not even by her Majesty and to Englishmen, for several weeks past. [Dubourgay.] Some inarticulate metallic growl, in private, at dinner or in the TABAKS-COLLEGIUM: the rest is truculent silence. Nor are our poor Hanover Recruits (according to our List of Pressed Hanoverians) in the least sent back; nor the Clamei Meadows settled; "Big Meadow" or "Little one," both of which the Brandenburgers have mown in the mean time.
Hanover Pressed men not coming home,--I think, not one of them,--the Hanover Officials decide to seize such Prussian Soldiers as happen to be seizable, in Hanover Territory. The highway in that border-country runs now on this side of the march, now on that;--watch well, and you will get Prussian Soldiers from time to time! Which the Hanover people do; and seize several, common men and even officers. Here is once more a high course of proceeding. Here is coal to raise smoke enough, if well blown upon,--which, with Seckendorf and Grumkow working the bellows, we may well fancy it was! But listen to what follows, independently of bellows.
On the 28th June, 1729, hay lying now quite dry upon the Meadow of Clamei, lo, the Bailiff of Hanoverian Buhlitz, Unpicturesque Traveller will find the peat-smoky little Village of Buhlitz near by a dusty little Town called Luchow, midway from Hamburg to Magdeburg; altogether peaty, mossy country; in the Salzwedel district, where used to be Wendic populations, and a Marck or Border Fortress of Salzwedel set up against them:--Bailiff of Buhlitz, I say, sallies forth with several carts, with all the population of the Village, with a troop of horse to escort, and probably flags flying and some kind of drums beating;--publicly rakes together the hay, defiant of the Prussian Majesty and all men; loads it on his carts, and rolls home with it; leaving to the Brandenburgers nothing but stubble and the memory of having mown for Hanover to eat. This is the 28th June, 1729; King of Prussia is now at Magdeburg, reviewing his troops; within a hundred miles of these contested quag-countries: who can blame him that he flames up now into clear blaze of royal indignation? The correspondence henceforth becomes altogether lively: but in the Britannic Archives there is nothing of it,--Dubourgay having received warning from my Lord Townshend to be altogether ignorant of the matter henceforth, and let the Hanover Officials manage it. His Prussian Majesty returns home in the most tempestuous condition.
We may judge what a time Queen Sophie had of it; what scenes there were with Crown-Prince Friedrich and Wilhelmina, in her Majesty's Apartment and elsewhere! Friedrich Wilhelm is fast mounting to the red-hot pitch. The bullyings, the beatings even, of these poor Children, love-sick one of them, are lamentable to hear of, as all the world has heard:--"Disobedient unnatural whelps, biting the heels of your poor old parent mastiff in his extreme need, what is to be done with you?" Fritz he often enough beats, gives a slap to with his rattan; has hurled a plate at him, on occasion, when bad topics rose at table; nay at Wilhelmina too, she says: but the poor children always ducked, and nothing but a little noise and loss of crockery ensued. Fritz he deliberately detests, as a servant of the Devil, incorrigibly rebelling against the paternal will, and going on those dissolute courses: a silly French cockatoo, suspected of disbelief in Scripture; given to nothing but fifing and play-books; who will bring Prussia aud himself to a bad end. "God grant he do not finish on the gallows!" sighed the sad Father once to Grumkow. The records of these things lie written far and wide, in the archives of many countries as well as in Wilhelmina's Book.
To me there was one undiplomatic reflection continually present: Heavens, could nobody have got a bit of rope, and hanged those two Diplomatic swindlers; clearly of the scoundrel genus, more than common pickpockets are? Thereby had certain young hearts, and honest old ones too, escaped being broken; and many a thing might have gone better than it did. JARNI-BLEU, Herr Feldzeugmeister, though you are an orthodox Protestant, this thousand-fold perpetual habit of distilled lying seems to me a bad one. I do not blame an old military gentleman, with a brow so puckered as yours, for having little of the milk of human kindness so called: but this of breaking, by force of lies merely, and for your own uses, the hearts of poor innocent creatures, nay of grinding them slowly in the mortar, and employing their Father's hand to do it withal; this--Herr General, forgive me, but there are moments when I feel as if the extinction of probably the intensest scoundrel of that epoch might have been a satisfactory event!--Alas, it could not be. Seckendorf is lying abroad for his Kaiser; "the only really able man we have," says Eugene sometimes. Snuffles and lisps; and travels in all, as they count, about 25,000 miles, keeping his Majesty in company. Here are some glimpses into the interior, dull but at first-hand, which are worth clipping and condensing from Dubourgay, with their dates:--
30th JULY, 1729. To the respectable old Brigadier, this day or yesterday, "her Majesty, all in tears, complained of her situation: King is nigh losing his senses on account of the differences with Hanover; goes from bed to bed in the night-time, and from chamber to chamber, 'like one whose brains are turned.' Took a fit, at two in the morning, lately, to be off to Wusterhausen:"--about a year ago Seckendorf and Grumkow had built a Lodge out there, where his Majesty, when he liked, could be snug and private with them: thither his Majesty now rushed, at two in the morning; but seemingly found little assuagement. "Since his return, he gives himself up entirely to drink:--Seckendorf," the snuffling Belial, "is busy, above ground and below; has been heard saying He alone could settle these businesses, Double-Marriage and all, would her Majesty but trust him!"--
"The King will not suffer the Prince-Royal to sit next his Majesty at table, but obliges him to go to the lower end; where things are so ordered," says the sympathetic Dubourgay, "that the poor Prince often rises without getting one bit,"--woe's me! "Insomuch that the Queen was obliged two days ago [28th July, 1729, let us date such an occurrence] to send, by one of the servants who could be trusted, a Box of cold fowls and other eatables for his Royal Highness's subsistence!" [Dubourgay, 30th July, 1729.]
In the first blaze of the outrage at Clamei, Friedrich Wilhelm's ardent mind suggested to him the method of single combat: defiance of George, by cartel, To give the satisfaction of a gentleman. There have been such instances on the part of Sovereigns; though they are rare: Karl Ludwig of the Pfalz, Winter-king's Son, for example, did, as is understood, challenge Turenne for burning the Pfalz (FIRST burning that poor country got); but nothing came of it, owing to Turenne's prudence. Friedrich Wilhelm sees well that it all comes from George's private humor: Why should human blood be shed except George's and mine? Friedrich Wilhelm is decisive for sending off the cartel; he has even settled the particulars, and sees in his glowing poetic mind how the transaction may be: say, at Hildesheim for place; Derschau shall be my second; Brigadier Sutton (if anybody now know such a man) may be his. Seconds, place and general outline he has schemed out, and fixed, so far as depends on one party; will fairly fence and fight this insolent little Royal Gentleman; give the world a spectacle (which might have been very wholesome to the world) of two Kings voiding their quarrel by duel and fair personal fence.
In England the report goes, "not without foundation," think Lord Hervey and men of sarcastic insight in the higher circles, That it was his Britannic Majesty who "sent or would have sent a challenge of single combat to his Prussian Majesty," the latter being the passive party! Report flung into an INVERSE posture, as is liable to happen; "going" now with its feet uppermost; "not without foundation," thinks Lord Hervey. "But whether it [the cartel] was carried and rejected, or whether the prayers and remonstrances of Lord Townshend prevented the gauntlet being actually thrown down, is a point which, to me [Lord Hervey] at least, has never been cleared." [Lord Hervey,
Memoirs of George II. (London, 1848), i. 127.]
The Prussian Ministers, no less than Townshend would, feel well that this of Duel will never do. Astonishment, FLEBILE LULIBRIUM, tragical tehee from gods and men, will come of the Duel! But how to turn it aside? For the King is determined. His truculent veracity of mind points out this as the real way for him; reasoning, entreating are to no purpose. "The true method, I tell you! As to the world and its cackling,--let the world cackle!" At length Borck hits on a consideration: "Your Majesty has been ill lately; hand perhaps not so steady as usual? Now if it should turn out that your Majesty proved so inferior to yourself as to--Good Heavens!" This, it is said, was the point that staggered his Majesty. Tobacco-Parliament, and Borck there, pushed its advantage: the method of duel (prevalent through the early part of July, I should guess) was given up. [Bielfeld,
Lettres familieres et autres (Second edition, 2 vols. Leide, 1767), i. 117, 118.] Why was there no Hansard in that Institution of the Country? Patience, idle reader! We shall get some scraps of the Debates on other subjects, by and by.--But hear Dubourgay again, in the absence of Morning Newspapers:--
AUGUST 9th, 1729. "Berlin looks altogether warlike. At Magdeburg they are busy making ovens to bake Ammunition-bread; Artillery is getting hauled out of the Arsenal here;" all is clangor, din of preparation. "It is said the King will fall on Mecklenburg;" can at once, if he like. "These intolerable usages from England [Seckendorf is rumored to have said], can your Majesty endure them forever? Why not marry the Prince-Royal, at once, to another Princess, and have done with them!"--or words to that effect, as reported by Court-rumor to her Majesty and Dubourgay. And there is a Princess talked of for this Match, Russian Princess, little Czar's Sister (little Czar to have Wilhelmina, Double-Marriage to be with Russia, not with England); but the little Czar soon died, little Czar's Sister went out of sight, or I know not what happened, and only brief rumor came of that.
As for the Crown-Prince, he has not fallen desperate; no; but appears to have strange schemes in him, deep under cover. "He has said to a confidant [Wilhelmina, it is probable], 'As to his ill-treatment, he well knew how to free himself of that [will fly to foreign parts, your Highness?], and would have done so long since, were it not for his Sister, upon whom the whole weight of his Father's resentment would then fall. Happen what will, therefore, he is resolved to share with her all the hardships which the King his Father may be pleased to put upon her." [Dubourgay, 11th August, 1729.] Means privately a flight to England, Dubourgay sees, and in a reticent diplomatic way is glad to see.
I possess near a dozen Hanoverian and Prussian Despatches upon this strange Business; but should shudder to inflict them on any innocent reader. Clear, grave Despatches, very brief and just, especially on the Prussian side: and on a matter too, which truly is not lighter than any other Despatch matter of that intrinsically vacant Epoch:--O reader, would I could bury all vacant talk and writing whatsoever, as I do these poor Despatches about the "eight cart-loads of hay"! Friedrich Wilhelm is fair-play itself; will do all things, that Earth or Heaven can require of him. Only, he is much in a hurry withal; and of this the Hanover Officials take advantage, perhaps unconsciously, to keep him in provocation. He lies awake at night, his heart is sore, and he has fled to drink. Towards the middle of August,--here again is a phenomenon,--"he springs out of bed in the middle of night," has again an EUREKA as to this of Clamei: "Eureka, I see now what will bring a settlement!" and sends off post-haste to Kannegiesser at Hanover. To Kannegiesser,--Herr Reichenbach, the special Envoy in this matter, being absent at the moment, gone to the Gohrde, I believe, where Britannic Majesty itself is: but Kannegiesser is there, upon the Ahlden Heritages; acquainted with the ground, a rather precise official man, who will serve for the hurry we are in. Post-haste; dove with olive-branch cannot go too quick;--Kannegiesser applying for an interview, not with the Britannic Majesty, who is at Gohrde, hunting, but with the Hanover Council, is--refused admittance. Here are Herr Kannegiesser's official Reports; which will themselves tell the rest of the story, thank Heaven:--
TO HIS PRUSSIAN MAJESTY (From Herr Kannegiesser).
No. 1. "DONE AT HANOVER, 15th AUGUST, 1729.
"On the 15th day of August, at ten o'clock in the morning, I received Two Orders of Council [these are THE EUREKA, never ask farther what they are]; despatched on the 13th instant at seven in the evening; whereupon I immediately went to the Council-chamber here; and informed the Herr von Hartoff, Private Secretary, who met me in a room adjoining, 'That, having something to propose to his Ministry [now sitting deliberative in the interior here; something to propose to his Ministry] on the part of the Prussian Ministers, it was necessary I should speak to them.' Herr von Hartoff, after having reported my demand, let me know, 'He had received orders from the Ministry to defer what I had to say to another time.'
"I replied, 'That, since I could not be allowed the honor of an audience at that time, I thought myself obliged to acquaint him I had received an Order from Berlin to apply to the Ministry of this place, in the name of the Ministers of Prussia, and make the most pressing instances for a speedy Answer to a Letter lately delivered to them by Herr Hofrath Reichenbath [my worthy Assistant here; Answer to his Letter in the first place]; and to desire that the Answer might be lodged in my hands, in order to remit it with safety.'
"Herr von Hartoff returned immediately to the Council-chamber; and after having told the Ministers what I had said, brought me the following answer, in about half-a-quarter of an hour [seven minutes by the watch]: 'That the Ministers of this Court would not fail answering the said Letter as soon as possible; and would take care to give me notice of it, and send the Answer to me.'"
That was all that the punctual Kannegiesser could get out of them. "But," continues he, "not thinking this reply sufficient, I added, 'That delays being dangerous, I would come again the next day for a more precise answer.'"
Rather a high-mannered positive man, this Kannegiesser, of the Ahlden Heritages; not without sharpness of temper, if the Hanover Officials drive it too far.
No. 2.--"AT HANOVER, 16th AUGUST, 1729.
"According to the orders received from the King my Master, and pursuant of my promise of yesterday, I went at noon this day to the Castle (SCHLOSS), for the purpose, of making appearance in the Council-chamber, where the Ministers were assembled.
"I let them know I was there, by Van Hartoff, Privy Secretary; and, in the mildest terms, desired to be admitted to speak with them. Which was refused me a second time; and the following answer delivered me by Van Hartoff: 'That since the Prussian Ministers had intrusted me with this Commission, the Ministers of this Court had directed him to draw up my yesterday's Proposals in writing, and report them to the Council.'
"Whereupon I said, 'I could not conceive any reason why I was the only person who could not be admitted to audience. That, however, as the Ministers of this Court were pleased to authorize him, Herr von Hartoff, to receive my Proposals, I was obliged to tell him,' as the first or preliminary point of my Commission, 'I had received orders to be very pressing with the said Ministers of this Court, for an Answer to a Letter from the Prussian Ministry, lately delivered by Herr Legationsrath von Reichenbach; and finding that the said Answer was not yet finished, I would stay two days for it, that I might be more secure of getting it. But that then I should come to put them in mind of it, and desire audience in order to acquit myself of the REST of my Commission.'
"The Privy Secretary drew up what I said in writing. Immediately afterwards he reported it to the Ministry, and brought me this answer: 'That the Ministers of this Court would be as good as their word of yesterday, and answer the above-mentioned Letter with all possible expedition.' After which we parted."
No. 3.--"AT HANOVER, 17th AUGUST, 1729
"At two in the afternoon, this day, Herr von Hartoff came to my house; and let me know 'He had business of consequence from the Ministry, and that he would return at five.' By my direction he was told, 'I should expect him.'
"At the time appointed he came; and told me, 'That the Ministers of the Court, understanding from him that I designed to ask audience to-morrow, did not doubt but my business would be to remind them of the Answer which I had demanded yesterday and the day before. That such applications were not customary among sovereign Princes; that they, the Ministers; 'dared not treat farther in that affair with me; that they desired me not to mention it to them again till they had received directions from his Britannic Majesty, to whom they had made their report; and that as soon as they received their instructions, the result of these should be communicated to me.'
"To this I replied, 'That I did not expect the Ministers of this Court would refuse me the audience which I designed to ask to-morrow; and that therefore I would not fail of being at the Council-chamber at eleven, next day,' according to bargain, 'to know their answer to the rest of my Proposals.'--Secretary Von Hartoff would not hear of this resolution; and assured me positively he had orders to listen to nothing more on the subject from me. After which he left me?"
No. 4.--"AT HANOVER, 18th AUGUST, 1729.
"At eleven, this day, I went to the Council-chamber, for the third time; and desired Secretary Hartoff 'To prevail with the Ministry to allow me to speak with them, and communicate what the King of Prussia had ordered me to propose.'
"Herr von Hartoff gave them an account of my request; and brought me for answer, 'That I must wait a little, because the Ministers were not yet all assembled.'" Which I did. "But after having made me stay almost an hour, and after the President of the Council was come, Herr von Hartoff came out to me; and repeated what he had said yesterday, in very positive and absolute terms, 'That the Ministers were resolved not to see me, and had expressly forbid him taking any Paper at my hands.'
"To which I replied, 'That this was very hard usage; and the world would see how the King of Prussia would relish it. But having strict orders from his Majesty, my most gracious Master, to make a Declaration to the Ministers of Hanover in his name; and finding Herr von Hartoff would neither receive it, nor take a copy of it, I had only to tell him that I was under the necessity of leaving it in writing,--and had brought the Paper with me,'" let Herr von Hartoff observe!--"'And that now, as the Council were pleased to refuse to take it, I was obliged to leave the said Declaration on a table in an adjoining room, in the presence of Herr von Hartoff and other Secretaries of the Council, whom I desired to lay it before the Ministry.'
"After this I went home; but had scarcely entered my apartment, when a messenger returned me the Declaration, still sealed as I left it, by order of the Ministers: and perceiving I was not inclined to receive it, he laid it on my table, and immediately left the house." [A Letter from an English Traveller to his Friend at London, relating to the Differences betwixt the Courts of Prussia and Hanover, with Copies of, &c. Translated from the French (London, A. Millar, at Buchanan's Head, 1730), pp. 29-34. An excellent distinct little Pamphlet; very explanatory in this matter,--like the smallest rushlight in a dark cellar of shot-lumber.]
Whereupon Kannegiesser, without loss of a moment, returns to Berlin, 19th August; and reports progress.
Simple honest Orson of a Prussian Majesty, what a bepainted, beribboned insulting Play-actor Majesty has he fallen in with!--"Hm, so? Hm, na!" and I see the face of him, all colors of the prism, and eyes in a fine frenzy; betokening thundery weather to some people! Instantly he orders 44,000 men to get on march; [Friedrich Wilhelm's "Manifesto" is in
Mauvillon, ii. 210-215, dated "20th August, 1729" (the day after Kannegieseer's return).] and these instantly begin to stir; small preparation needed, ever-ready being the word with them. From heavy guns, ammunition-wagons and draught-horses, down to the last buckle of a spatterdash, things are all ticketed and ready in his Majesty's country; things, and still more evidently men. Within a week, the amazed Gazetteers (Newspaper Editors we now call them) can behold the actual advent of horse, foot and artillery regiments at Magdeburg; actual rendezvous begun, and with a frightful equable velocity going on day after day. On the 15th day of September, if Fate's almanac hold steady, there will be 44,000 of them ready there. Such a mass of potential-battle as George or the Hanover Officiality are--ready to fight?
Alas, far enough from that. Forces of their own they have, after a sort; subsidized Hessians, Danes, these they can begin to stir up; but they have not a regiment ready for fighting; and have NOTHING, if all were ready, which this 44,000 cannot too probably sweep out of the world. I suppose little George must have exhibited some prismatic colors of countenance, too. This insulted Orson is swinging a tremendous club upon the little peruked ribboned high gentleman, promenading loftily in his preserves yonder! The Prussian forces march, steady, continual; Crown-Prince Friedrich's regiment of Giants is on march, expressly under charge of Friedrich himself:--the young man's thoughts are not recorded for us; only that he gets praise from his Father, so dexterous and perfect is he with the Giants and their getting into gear. Nor is there, says our Foreign Correspondent, the least truth, in your rumor that the Prussian forces, officers or men, marched with bad will; "conspicuously the reverse is the truth, as I myself can testify." [Pamphlet cited above.] And his Britannic Majesty, now making a dreadful flutter to assemble as fast as possible, is like to get quite flung into the bogs by this terrible Orson!--
What an amazement, among the Gazetteers: thunder-clouds of war mounting up over the zenith in this manner, and blotting out the sun; may produce an effect on the Congress of Soissons? Presumably: and his Imperial Majesty, left sitting desolate on his Pragmatic Sanction, gloomily watching events, may find something turn up to his advantage? Prussia and England are sufficiently in quarrel, at any rate; perhaps almost too much.--The Pope, in these circumstances, did a curious thing. The Pope, having prayed lately for rain and got it, proceeds now, in the end of September, while such war-rumors are still at their height in Rome, to pray, or even do a Public Mass, or some other so-called Pontificality, "in the Chapel of Philip Neri in the New Church," by way of still more effectual miracle. Prays, namely, That Heaven would be graciously pleased to foment, and blow up to the proper degree, this quarrel between the two chief Heretic Powers, Heaven's chief enemies, whereby Holy Religion might reap a good benefit, if it pleased Heaven. But, this time, the miracle did not go off according to program. ["Extract of a Letter from Rome, 24th September, 1729," in Townshend's Despatch, Whitehall, 10th Outober, 1729.]
For at this point, before the Pope had prayed, but while the troops and artillery were evidently all on march ("Such an artillery as I," who am Kaiser's Artillery-Master, "for my poor part, never had the happiness to see before in any country," snuffles Seckendorf in the Smoking Parliament), and now swords are, as it were, drawn, and in the air make horrid circles,--the neighbors interfere: "Heavens I put up your swords!"--and the huge world-wide tumult suddenly (I think, in the very first days of this month September) collapses, sinks into something you can put into a snuff-box.
Of course it could never come to actual battle, after all. Too high a pickle-herring tragedy that. Here is a COMODIANT not wanting to be smitten into the bogs; an honest Orson who wants nothing, nor has ever wanted, but fair-play. Fair-play; and not to be insulted on the streets, or have one's poor Hobby quite knocked from under one!--Neighbors, as we say, struck in; France, Holland, all the neighbors, at this point: "Do it by arbitration; Wolfenbuttel for the one, Sachsen-Gotha for the other; Commissioners to meet at Brunswick!" And that, accordingly, was the course fixed upon; and settlement, by that method, was accomplished, without difficulty, in some six months hence. [16th April, 1730 (Forster, ii. 105).] Whether Clamei was awarded to Hanover or to Brandenburg, I never knew, or how the hay of it is cut at this moment. I only know there was no battle on the subject; though at one time there was like to be such a clash of battle as the old Markgraves never had with their old Wends; not if we put all their battlings into one.
Seckendorf's radiant brow has to pucker itself again: this fine project, of boiling the Kaiser's eggs by setting the world on fire, has not prospered after all. The gloomy old villain came to her Majesty one day, [Dubourgay, 30th July, 1729.] while things were near the hottest; and said or insinuated, He was the man that could do these businesses, and bring about the Double-Marriage itself, if her Majesty were not so harsh upon him. Whereupon her Majesty, reporting to Dubourgay, threw out the hint, "What if we (that is, you) did give him a forty or fifty thousand thalers verily, for he will do anything for money?" To which Townshend answers from the Gohrde, to the effect: "Pooh, he is a mere bag of noxious futilities; consists of gall mainly, and rusty old lies and crotchets; breathing very copperas through those old choppy lips of his: let him go to the--!" Next Spring, at the happy end of the Arbitration, which he had striven all he could to mar and to retard, he fell quite ill; took to his bed for two days,--colics, or one knows not what;--"and I can't say I am very sorry for him," writes the respectable Dubourgay. [25th April, 1730.] On the 8th day of September, 1729, Friedrich Crown-Prince re-enters Potsdam [Ib. 11th Sept. 1729.] with his two battalions of Giants; he has done so well, the King goes out from Berlin to see him march in with them; rejoicing to find something of a soldier in the young graceless, after all. "The King distributed 100,000 thalers (15,000 pounds) among his Army;" being well pleased with their behavior, and doubtless right glad to be out of such a Business. The Ahlden Heritages will now get liquidated; Mecklenburg,--our Knyphausen, with the Hanover Consorts, will settle Mecklenburg; and all shall be well again, we hope!--
The fact, on some of these points, turned out different; but it was now of less importance. As to Knyphausen's proceedings at Mecklenburg, after the happy Peace, they were not so successful as had been hoped. Need of quarrel, however, between the Majesties, there henceforth was not in Mecklenburg; and if slight rufflings and collisions did arise, it was not till after our poor Double-Marriage was at any rate quite out of the game, and they are without significance to us. But the truth is, though Knyphausen did his best, no settlement came; nor indeed could ever come. Shall we sum up that sorry matter here, and wash our hands of it? _