History Of Friedrich II of Prussia 【Books I － XIV】
Book 7. Fearful Shipwreck Of The Double-Marriage Project Book 7. Fearful Shipwreck Of The Double-Marriage Project - Chapter 3. Camp Of Radewitz
Thomas Carlyle
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_ BOOK VII. FEARFUL SHIPWRECK OF THE DOUBLE-MARRIAGE PROJECT
CHAPTER III. CAMP OF RADEWITZ
The Camp of Muhlberg, called more properly the Camp of Radewitz, towards which Friedrich Wilhelm, with English Hotham and many dignitaries are now gone, was one of the sublimest scenic military exhibitions in the history of the world; leaving all manner of imitation tournaments, modern "tin-tournaments," out of sight; and perhaps equalling the Field of the Cloth of Gold, or Barbarossa's Mainz Tournament in ancient times. It lasted for a month, regardless of expense,--June month of the year 1730;--and from far and wide the idle of mankind ran, by the thousand, to see it. Shall the thing be abolished utterly,--as perhaps were proper, had not our Crown-Prince been there, with eyes very open to it, and yet with thoughts very shut;--or shall some flying trace of the big Zero be given? Riddling or screening certain cart-loads of heavy old German printed rubbish, [Chiefly the terrible compilation called
Helden-Staats und Lebens-Geschichte des, &c. Friedrichs des Andern (History Heroical, Political and Biographical of Friedrich the Second), Frankfurt and Leipzig, 1759-1760, vol, i. first HALF, pp. 171-210. There are ten thick and thin half-volumes, and perhaps more. One of the most hideous imbroglios ever published under the name of Book,--without vestige of Index, and on paper that has no margin and cannot stand ink,--yet with many curious articles stuffed blindly into the awful belly of it, like jewels into a rag-sack, or into TEN rag-sacks all in one; with far more authenticity than you could expect in such case. Let us call it, for brevity, Helden-Geschichte, in future references.] to omit the Hotham Despatches, we obtained the following shovelful of authentic particulars, perhaps not quite insupportable to existing mankind.
The exact size of the Camp of Radewitz I nowhere find measured; but to judge on the map, [At p. 214.] it must have covered, with its appendages, some ten or twelve square miles of ground. All on the Elbe, right bank of the Elbe; Town of Muhlberg, chief Town of the District, lying some ten miles northwest; then, not much beyond it, Torgau; and then famed Wittenberg, all on the northwest, farther down the River: and on the other side, Meissen with its Potteries not far to the southeast of you, up the River, on the Dresden hand. Nay perhaps many of my readers have seen the place, and not known, in their touring expeditions; which are now blinder than ever, and done by steam, without even eyesight, not to say intelligence. Precisely where the railway from Leipzig to Dresden crosses the Elbe,--there, if you happen to have daylight, is a flat, rather clayey country, dirty-greenish, as if depastured partly by geese; with a big full River Elbe sweeping through it, banks barish for a mile or two; River itself swift, sleek and of flint-color; not unpleasant to behold, thus far on its journey from the Bohemian Giant-Mountains seaward: precisely there, when you have crossed the Bridge, is the south-most corner of August the Strong's Encampment,--vanished now like the last flock of geese that soiled and nibbled these localities;--and, without knowing it, you are actually upon memorable ground.
Actually, we may well say; apart from August and his fooleries. For here also it was, on the ground now under your eye, that Kurfurst Johann Friedrich the Magnanimous, having been surprised the day before at public worship in the abovementioned Town of Muhlberg, and completely beaten by Kaiser Karl the Fifth and his Spaniards and Duke of Alba, did, on Monday 25th April, 1547, ride forth as Prisoner to meet the said Kaiser; and had the worst reception from him, poor man. "Take pity on me, O God! This is what it is come to?" the magnanimous beaten Kurfurst was heard murmuring as he rode. At sight of the Kaiser, he dismounted, pulled off his iron-plated gloves, knelt, and was: for humbly taking the Kaiser's hand, to kiss it. Kaiser would not; Kaiser looked thunderous tornado on him, with hands rigidly in the vertical direction. The magnanimous Kurfurst arose therefore; doffed his hat: "Great-mightiest (GROSSMACHTIGSTER) all-gracious Kaiser, I am your Majesty's prisoner," said he, confining himself to the historical. "I AM Kaiser now, then?" answered the sullen Tornado, with a black brow and hanging under-jaw.--"I request my imprisonment may be prince-like," said the poor Prince. "It shall be as your deserts have been!"--"I am in your power; you will do your pleasure on me," answered the other;--and was led away, to hard durance and peril of life for five years to come; his Cousin Moritz, having expertly jockeyed his Electoral dignities and territories from him in the interim; [De Wette, Kursgefasste Lebensgeschichte der Herzoge zu Sachsen (Weimar, 1770), pp. I, 33, 73.]--as was told above, long since.
Expert Cousin Moritz: in virtue of which same Moritz, or rather perhaps in VICE of him, August the Strong is even now Elector of Saxony; Papist, Pseudo-Papist Apostate King of Poland, and Non-plus-ultra of "gluttonous Royal Flunkies;" doomed to do these fooleries on God's Earth for a time. For the sins of the fathers are visited upon the children,--in ways little dreamt of by the flunky judgment,--to the sixth generation and farther. Truly enough this is memorable ground, little as King August, thinks of it; little as the idle tourists think, or the depasturing geese, who happen to be there.
The ten square miles have been industriously prepared for many months past; shaved, swept by the best engineer science: every village of it thoroughly cleaned, at least; the villages all let lodgings at a Californian rate; in one village, Moritz by name, [Map at page 214.] is the slaughter-house, killing oxen night and day; and the bakehouee, with 160 mealy bakers who never rest: in another village, Strohme, is the playhouse of the region; in another, Glaubitz, the post-office: nothing could excel the arrangements; much superior, I should judge, to those for the Siege of Troy, and other world-great enterprises. Worthy really of admiration, had the business not been zero. Foreign Courts: European Diplomacy at large, wondered much what cunning scheme lay hidden here. No scheme at all, nor purpose on the part of poor August; only that of amusing himself, and astonishing the flunkies of Creation,--regardless of expense. Three temporary Bridges, three besides the regular ferry of the country, cross the Elbe; for the high officers, dames, damosels and lordships of degree, and thousandfold spectators, lodge on both sides of the Elbe: three Bridges, one of pontoons, one of wood-rafts, one of barrels; immensely long, made for the occasion. The whole Saxon Army, 30,000 horse and foot with their artillery, all in beautiful brand-new uniforms and equipments, lies beautifully encamped in tents and wooden huts, near by Zeithayn, its rear to the Elbe; this is the "ARMEE LAGER (Camp of the Army)" in our old Rubbish Books. Northward of which,--with the Heath of Gorisch still well beyond, and bluish to you, in the farther North,--rises, on favorable ground, a high "Pavilion" elaborately built, elaborately painted and gilded, with balcony stages round it; from which the whole ground, and everything done in it, is surveyable to spectators of rank.
Eastward again, or from the Pavilion southeastward, at the right flank of the Army, where again rises a kind of Height, hard by Radewitz, favorable for survey,--there, built of sublime silk tents, or solid well-painted carpentry, the general color of which is bright green, with gilt knobs and gilt gratings all about, is the :HAUPT-LAGER," Head-quarters, Main LAGER, Heart of all the LAGERS; where his Prussian Majesty, and his Polish ditto, with their respective suites, are lodged. Kinglike wholly, in extensive green palaces ready gilt and furnished; such drawing-rooms, such bedrooms, "with floors of dyed wicker-work;" the gilt mirrors, pictures, musical clocks; not even the fine bathing-tubs for his Prussian Majesty have been forgotten. Never did man or flunky see the like. Such immense successful apparatus, without and within; no end of military valetaille, chiefly "janizaries," in Turk costume; improvised flower-gardens even, and walks of yellow sand,--the whole Hill of Radewitz made into a flower-garden in that way. Nay, in the Army LAGER too, many of the Captains have made little improvised flower-gardens in that Camp of theirs, up and down. For other Captains not of a poetical turn, there are billiards, coffee-houses, and plenty of excellent beer and other liquor. But the mountains of cavalry hay, that stand guarded by patrols in the rearward places, and the granaries of cavalry oats, are not to be told. Eastward, from their open porticos and precincts, with imitation "janizaries" pacing silent lower down, the Two Majesties oversee the Army, at discretion; can survey all things,--even while dining, which they do daily, like very kings! Fritz is lodged there; has a magnificent bed: poor young fellow, he alone now makes the business of any meaning to us. He is curious enough to see the phenomena, military and other; but oppressed with black care: "My Amelia is not here, and the tyrant Father is--tyrannous with his rattan: ye gods!"
We could insist much on the notable people that were there; for the Lists of them are given. Many high Lordships; some of whom will meet us again. Weissenfels, Wilhelmina's unfavored lover, how busy is he, commanding gallantly (in the terrific Sham-Battle) against Wackerbarth; General Wackerbarth, whose house we saw burnt on a Dresden visit, not so long ago. Old Leopold of Anhalt-Dessau is there, the Old Dessauer; with four of his Princes; instructed in soldiering, left without other instruction; without even writing, unless they can pick it up for themselves. Likely young fellows too, with a good stroke of work in them, of battle in them, when called for. Young Anspach, lately wedded, comes, in what state he can, poor youth; lodges with the Prussian Majesty his Father-in-law; should keep rather quiet, his share of wisdom being small. Seckendorf with his Grumkow, they also are here, in the train of Friedrich Wilhelm. Grumkow shoves the bottle with their Polish and Prussian Majesties: in jolly hours, things go very high there. I observe they call King August "LE PATRON," the Captain, or "Patroon;" a fine jollity dwelling in that Man of Sin. Or does the reader notice Holstein-Beck, Prussian Major-General; Prince of Holstein-Beck; a solid dull man; capable of liquor, among other things: not wiser than he should be; sold all his Apanage or Princeship; for example, and bought plate with it, wherefore they call him ever since "Holstein-VAISSELLE (Holstein PLATE)" instead of Holstein-Beck. [Busching's Beitrage, iv. 109.] His next Brother, here likewise I should think, being Major-General in the Saxon service, is still more foolish. He, poor soul, is just about to marry the Orzelska; incomparable Princess known to us, who had been her Father's mistress:--marriage, as was natural, went asunder again (1733) after a couple of years.--But mark especially that middle-aged heavy gentleman, Prince of Anhalt-Zerbst, Prussian Commandant of Stettin. Not over rich (would not even be rich if he came to be reigning Duke, as he will do); attentive at his post in those parts, ever since the Siege-of-Stralsund time; has done his orders, fortified Stettin to perfection; solid, heavy taciturn man:--of whom there is nothing notable but this only, That last year his Wife brought him a little Daughter, Catharine the name of her. His Wife is a foolish restless dame, highborn and penniless; let her nurse well this little Catharine: little Catharine will become abundantly distinguished in a thirty years hence; Empress of all the Russias that little girl; the Fates have so appointed it, mocking the prophecies of men! Here too is our poor unmentionable Duke of Mecklenburg: poor soul, he has left his quarrels with the Ritterschaft for a week or two, and is here breathing the air of the Elbe Heaths. His wild Russian Wife, wild Peter's niece and more, we are relieved to know is dead; for her ways and Peter's have been very strange! To this unmentionable Duke of Mecklenburg she has left one Daughter, a Princess Elizabeth-Catherine, who will be called Princess ANNE, one day: whose fortunes in the world may turn out to be tragical. Potential heiress of all the Russias, that little Elizabeth or Anne. Heiress by her wily aunt, Anne of Courland,--Anne with the swollen cheek, whom Moritz, capable of many things, and of being MARECHAL DE SAXE by and by, could not manage to fall in love with there; and who has now just quitted Courland, and become Czarina: [Peter II., her Cousin-german, died January, 1730 (Mannstein's Russia ).]--if Aunt Anne with the big cheek should die childless, as is likely, this little Niece were Heiress. WAS THUT'S, What matter!--
In the train of King August are likewise splendors of a sort, if we had time for them. Dukes of Sachsen-Gotha, Dukes of Meiningen, most of the Dukes that put Sachsen to their name;--Sachsen-Weimar for one; who is Grandfather of Goethe's Friend, if not otherwise distinguished. The Lubomirskis, Czartoryskis, and others of Polish breed, shall be considered as foreign to us, and go unnoticed. Nor are high Dames wanting, as we see: vast flights of airy bright-hued womankind, Crown-Princess at the head of them, who lodges in Tiefenau with her Crown-Prince,--and though plain-looking, and not of the sweetest temper, is a very high Lady indeed. Niece of the present Kaiser Karl, Daughter of the late Kaiser, Joseph of blessed memory;--for which reason August never yet will sign the Pragmatic Sanction, his Crown-Prince having hereby rights of his own in opposition thereto. She is young; to her is Tiefenau, northward, on the edge of the Gorisch Heath, probably the choicest mansion in these circuits, given up: also she is Lady of "the Bucentaur," frigate equal to Cleopatra's galley in a manner; and commands, so to speak, by land and water. Supreme Lady, she, of this sublime world-foolery regardless of expense: so has the gallantry of August ordered it. Our Friedrich and she will meet again, on occasions not like this!--What the other Princesses and Countesses, present on this occasion, were to Crown-Prince Friedrich, except a general flower-bed of human nature,--ask not; nor even whether the Orzelska was so much as here! The Orzelska will be married, some two months hence, [10th August, 1730 (Sir T. Robinson: Despatch from Dresden; in State-Paper Office).] to a Holstein-Beck; not to Holstein PLATE, but to his Brother the unfortunate Saxon Major-General: a man surely not of nice tastes in regard to marriage;--and I would recommend him to keep his light Wife at home on such occasions. They parted, as we said, in a year or two, mutually indignant; and the Orzelska went to Avignon, to Venice and else-whither, and settled into Catholic devotion in cheap countries of agreeable climate. [See Pollnitz ( Memoirs, &c.), whoever is curious about her.]
Crown-Prince Friedrich, doubtless, looking at this flower-bed of human nature, and the reward of happy daring paid by Beauty, has vivid images of Princess Amelia and her Vice-regency of Hanover; bright Princess and Vice-regency, divided from him by bottomless gulfs, which need such a swim as that of Leander across the material Hellespont was but a trifle to!--In which of the villages Hotham and Dickens lodged, I did not learn or inquire; nor are their copious Despatches, chronicling these sublime phenomena from day to day for behoof of St. James's, other than entirely inane to us at this time. But one thing we do learn from them: Our Crown-Prince, escaping the paternal vigilance, was secretly in consultation with Dickens, or with Hotham through Dickens; and this in the most tragic humor on his side. In such effulgences of luxury and scenic grandeur, how sad an attendant is Black Care,--nay foul misusage, not to be borne by human nature! Accurate Professor Ranke has read somewhere,--does not comfortably say where, nor comfortably give the least date,--this passage, or what authorizes him to write it. "In that Pleasure-Camp of Muhlberg, where the eyes of so many strangers were directed to him, the Crown-Prince was treated like a disobedient boy, and one time even with strokes (KORPERLICH MISSHANDELT), to make him feel he was only considered as such. The enraged King, who never weighed the consequences of his words, added mockery to his manual outrage. He said, 'Had I been treated so by my Father, I would have blown my brains out: but this fellow has no honor, he takes all that comes!'" [Ranke, Neun Bucher Preussischer Geschichte (Berlin, 1847), i. 297.] EINMAL KORPERLICH MISSHANDELT: why did not the Professor give us time, occasion, circumstances, and name of some eye-witness? For the fact, which stands reported in the like fashion in all manner of Histories, we shall otherwise find to be abundantly certain; and it produced conspicuous definite results. It is, as it were, the one fact still worth human remembrance in this expensive Radewitz and its fooleries; and is itself left in that vague inert state,-- irremediable at present.
Beaten like a slave; while lodged, while figuring about, like a royal highness, in this sumptuous manner! It appears clearly the poor Prince did hereupon, in spite of his word given to Wilhelmina, make up his mind to run. Ingenious Ranke, forgetting again to date, knows from the Archives, that Friedrich went shortly afterwards to call on Graf von Hoym, one day. Speaking to Graf von Hoym, who is Saxon First-Minister, and Factotum of the arrangements here, he took occasion cursorily to ask, Could not a glimpse of Leipzig, among all these fine things, be had? Order for horses to or at Leipzig, for "a couple of officers" (Lieutenant Keith and self),--quietly, without fuss of passes and the like, Herr Graf?--The Herr Graf glances into it with eyes which have a twinkle in them: SCHWERLICH, Royal Highness. They are very strict about passes. Do not try it, Royal Highness! [Ranke, ib.; Forster, i. 365, and more especially iii. 4 (Seckendorf's Narrative there).] And Friedrich did desist, in that direction, poor youth; but tried it the more in others. Very busy, in deep secrecy, corresponding with Lieutenant Katte at Berlin, consulting tragically with Captain Guy Dickens here.--Whether any hint or whisper came to the Prussian Majesty from Graf von Hoym? Lieutenant Keith was, shortly after, sent to Wesel to mind his soldiering there, far down the Rhine Country in the Garrison of Wesel; [Wilhelmina told us lately (supra, p. 149), Keith HAD been sent to Wesel; but she has misdated as usual.] better there than colleaguing with a Fritz, and suggesting to him idle truancies or worse.
With Katte at Berlin the desperate Prince has concocted another scheme of Flight, this Hoym one being impossible; scheme executable by Katte and him, were this Radewitz once over. And as for his consultations with Guy Dickens, the result of them is: Captain Dickens, on the 16th of June, with eyes brisk enough, and lips well shut, sets out from Radewitz express for London. This is what I read as abstract of HOTHAM'S DESPATCH, 16th June, 1730, which Dickens is to deliver with all caution at St. James's: "Crown-Prince has communicated to Dickens his plan of escape; 'could no longer bear the outrages of his Father.' Is to attend his Father to Anspath shortly (JOURNEY TO THE REICH, of which we shall hear anon), and they are to take a turn to Stuttgard: which latter is not very far from Strasburg on the French side of the Rhine. To Strasburg he will make his escape; stay six weeks or a couple of months (that his Mother be not suspected); and will then proceed to England. Hopes England will take such measures as to save his Sister from ruin." These are his fixed resolutions: what will England do in such abstruse case?--Captain Dickens speeds silently with his Despatch; will find Lord Harrington, not Townshend any more; [Resigned 15th May, 1730: Despatch to Hotham, as farewell, of that date.] will copiously open his lips to Harrington on matters Prussian. A brisk military man, in the prime of his years; who might do as Prussian Envoy himself, if nothing great were going on? Harrington's final response will take some deliberating.
Hotham, meanwhile, resumes his report, as we too must do, of the Scenic Exhibitions;--and, we can well fancy, is getting weary of it; wishing to be home rather, "as his business here seems ended." [Preceding Despatch (of 16th June).] One day he mentions a rumor (inane high rumors being prevalent in such a place); "rumor circulated here, to which I do not give the slightest credit, that the Prince-Royal of Prussia is to have one of the Archduchesses," perhaps Maria Theresa herself! Which might indeed have saved immensities of trouble to the whole world, as well as to the Pair in question, and have made a very different History for Germany and the rest of us. Fancy it! But for many reasons, change of religion, had there been no other, it was an impossible notion. "May be," thinks Hotham, "that the Court of Vienna throws out this bait to continue the King's delusion,"--or a snuffle from Seckendorf, without the Court, may have given it currency in so inane an element as Radewitz.
Of the terrific Sham-Battles, conducted by Weissenfels on one side and Wackerbarth on the other; of the charges of cavalry, play of artillery, threatening to end in a very doomsday, round the Pavilion and the Ladies and the Royalties assembled on the balconies there (who always go to dinner safe, when victory has declared itself), I shall say nothing. Nor of that supreme "attack on the intrenchments:" blowing-up of the very Bridges; cavalry posted in the woods; host doing its very uttermost against host, with unheard-of expenditure of gunpowder and learned manoeuvre; in which "the Fleet" (of shallops on the Elbe, rigged mostly in silk) took part, and the Bucentaur with all its cannon. Words fail on such occasions. I will mention only that assiduous King August had arranged everything like the King of Playhouse-Managers; was seen, early in the morning, "driving his own curricle" all about, in vigilant supervision and inspection; crossed the Tub-bridge, or perhaps the Float-bridge (not yet blown up), "in a WURSTWAGEN;" giving himself (what proved well founded) the assurance of success for this great day;--and finally that, on the morrow, there occurred an illumination and display of fire-works, the like of which is probably still a desideratum.
For the Bucentaur and Fleet were all hung with colored lamplets; Headquarters (HAUPT-LAGER) and Army-LAGER ditto ditto; gleaming upwards with their golden light into the silver of the Summer Twilight:--and all this is still nothing to the scene there is across the Elbe, on our southeast corner. You behold that Palace of the Genii; wings, turrets, mainbody, battlements: it is "a gigantic wooden frame, on which two hundred carpenters have been busy for above six months," ever since Christmas last. Two hundred carpenters; and how many painters I cannot say: but they have smeared "six thousand yards of linen canvas;" which is now nailed up; hung with lamps, begirt with fire-works, no end of rocket-serpents, catherine-wheels; with cannon and field-music, near and far, to correspond;--and is now (evening of the 24th June, 1730) shining to men and gods. Pinnacles, turrets, tablatures, tipt with various fires and emblems, all is there:
SMALL MAP IN HERE------
symbolic Painting, six hundred yards of it, glowing with inner light, and legible to the very owls! Arms now piled useless; Pax, with her Appurtenances; Mars resting (in that canvas) on trophies of laurel honorably won: and there is an Inscription, done in lamplets, every letter taller than a man, were you close upon it, "SIC FULTA MANEBIT (Thus supported it will stand),"-- the it being either PAX (Peace) or DOMUS (the Genii-Palace itself), as your weak judgment may lead you to interpret delicate allusions. Every letter bigger tban a man: it may be read almost at Wittenberg, I should think; flaming as PICA written on the sky, from the steeple-tops there. THUS SUPPORTED IT WILL STAND; and pious mortals murmur, "Hope so, I am sure!"--and the cannons fire, almost without ceasing; and the field-music, guided by telegraphs, bursts over all the scene, at due moments; and the Catherine-wheels fly hissing; and the Bucentaur and silk Brigantines glide about like living flambeaus;--and in fact you must fancy such a sight. King August, tired to the bone, and seeing all successful, retired about midnight. Friedrich Wilhelm stood till the finale; Saxon Crown-Prince and he, "in a window of the highest house in Promnitz;" our young Fritz and the Margraf of Anspach, they also, in a neighboring window, [24th-25th June: Helden-Geschichte (above spoken of), i. 200] stood till the finale: two in the morning, when the very Sun was not far from rising.
Or is not the ultimate closing day perhaps still notabler; a day of universal eating? Debauchee King August had a touch of genuine human good-humor in him; poor devil, and had the best of stomachs. Eighty oxen, fat as Christmas, were slain and roasted, subsidiary viands I do not count; that all the world might have one good dinner. The soldiers, divided into proper sections, had cut trenches, raised flat mounds, laid planks; and so, by trenching and planking, had made at once table and seat, wood well secured on turf. At the end of every table rose a triglyph, two strong wooden posts with lintel; on the lintel stood spiked the ox's head, ox's hide hanging beneath it as drapery: and on the two sides of the two posts hung free the four roasted quarters of said ox; from which the common man joyfully helped himself. Three measures of beer he had, and two of wine;--which, unless the measures were miraculously small, we may take to be abundance. Thus they, in two long rows, 30,000 of them by the tale, dine joyfully SUB DIO. The two Majesties and two Crown-Princes rode through the ranks, as dinner went on: "King of Prussia forever!" and caps into the air;--at length they retire to their own HAUPT-QUARTIER, where, themselves dining, they can still see the soldiers dine, or at least drink their three measures and two. Dine, yea dine abundantly: let all mortals have one good dinner!--
Royal dinner is not yet done when a new miracle appears on the field: the largest Cake ever baked by the Sons of Adam. Drawn into the Head-quarter about an hour ago, on a wooden frame with tent over it, by a team of eight horses; tent curtaining it, guarded by Cadets; now the tent is struck and off;--saw mortals ever the like? It is fourteen ells (KLEINE ELLEN) long, by six broad; and at the centre half an ell thick. Baked by machinery; how otherwise could peel or roller act on such a Cake? There are five thousand eggs in it; thirty-six bushels (Berlin measure) of sound flour; one tun of milk, one tun of yeast, one ditto of butter; crackers, gingerbread-nuts, for fillet or trimming, run all round. Plainly the Prince of Cakes! A Carpenter with gigantic knife, handle of it resting on his shoulder,--Head of the Board of Works, giving word of command,--enters the Cake by incision; cuts it up by plan, by successive signal from the Board of Works. What high person would not keep for himself, to say nothing of eating, some fraction of such a Nonpareil? There is cut and come again for all. Carpenter advances, by main trench and by side trenches, steadily to word of command.
I mention, as another trait of the poor devil of an August, full of good-humor after all, That he and his Royalties and big Lordships having dined, he gave the still groaning table with all its dishes, to be scrambled for by "the janizaries." Janizaries, Imitation-Turk valetaille; who speedily made clearance,--many a bit of precious Meissen porcelain going far down in society by that means.
Royal dinner done, the Colonel and Officers of every regiment, ranked in high order, with weapons drawn, preceded by their respective bands of music, came marching up the Hill to pay their particular respects to the Majesty of Prussia. Majesty of Prussia promised them his favor, everlasting, as requested; drank a glass of wine to each party (steady, your Majesty!), who all responded by glasses of wine, and threw the glasses aloft with shouts. Sixty pieces of artillery speaking the while, and the bands of music breathing their sweetest;--till it was done, and his Majesty still steady on his feet. He could stand a great deal of wine.
And now--? Well, the Cake is not done, many cubic yards of cake are still left, and the very corporals can do no more: let the Army scramble! Army whipt it away in no time. And now, alas now-- the time IS come for parting. It is ended; all things end. Not for about an hour could the HERRSCHAFTEN (Lordships and minor Sovereignties) fairly tear themselves away, under wailing music, and with the due emotion.
The Prussian Royalties, and select few, took boat down the River, on the morrow; towards Lichtenburg Hunting-Palace, for one day's slaughtering of game. They slaughtered there about one thousand living creatures, all driven into heaps for them,--"six hundred of red game" (of the stag species), "four hundred black," or of the boar ditto. They left all these creatures dead; dined immensely; then did go, sorrowfully sated; Crown-Prince Friedrich in his own carriage in the rear; Papa in his, preceding by a few minutes; all the wood horns, or French horns, wailing sad adieu;--and hurried towards Berlin through the ambrosial night. [28th June, 1730: Helden-Geschichte, i. 205.]
And so it is all ended. And August the Strong--what shall we say of August? History must admit that he attains the maximum in several things. Maximum of physical strength; can break horse-shoes, nay half-crowns with finger and thumb. Maximum of sumptuosity; really a polite creature; no man of his means so regardless of expense. Maximum of Bastards, three hundred and fifty-four of them; probably no mortal ever exceeded that quantity. Lastly, he has baked the biggest Bannock on record; Cake with 5,000 eggs in it, and a tun of butter. These things History must concede to him. Poor devil, he was full of good-humor too, and had the best of stomachs. His amputated great-toe does not mend: out upon it, the world itself is all so amputated, and not like mending! August the Strong, dilapidated at fifty-three, is fast verging towards a less expensive country: and in three years hence will be lodged gratis, and need no cook or flunky of either sex.
"This Camp of Radewitz," says Smelfungus, one of my Antecessors, finishing his long narrative of it, "this Camp is Nothing; and after all this expense of King August's and mine, it flies away like a dream. But alas, were the Congresses of Cambrai and Soissons, was the life-long diplomacy of Kaiser Karl, or the History of torpid moribund Europe in those days, much of a Something? The Pragmatic Sanction, with all its protocolling, has fled, like the temporary Playhouse of King August erected there in the village of Strohme. Much talk, noise and imaginary interest about both; but both literally have become zero, WERE always zero. As well talk about the one as the other."---Then why not SILENCE about both, my Friend Smelfnngus? He answers: "That truly is the thing to be aimed at;--and if we had once got our own out of both, let both be consumed with fire, and remain a handful of inarticulate black ashes forevermore." Heavens, will I, of all men, object!
Smelfungus says elsewhere:--
"The moral to be derived, perhaps the chief moral visible at present, from all this Section of melancholy History is: Modern Diplomacy is nothing; mind well your own affairs, leave those of your neighbors well alone. The Pragmatic Sanction, breaking Fritz's, Friedrich Wilhelm's, Sophie's, Wilhelmina's, English Amelia's and I know not how many private hearts, and distracting with vain terrors and hopes the general soul of Europe for five-and-twenty years, fell at once into dust and vapor, and went wholly towards limbo on the storm-winds, doing nothing for or against any mortal. Friedrich Wilhelm's 80,000 well-drilled troops remained very actual with their firelocks and iron ramrods, and did a thing or two, there being a Captain over them. Friedrich Wilhelm's Directorium, well-drilled Prussian Downing Street, every man steady at his duty, and no wind to be wasted where silence was better, did likewise very authentically remain, --and still remains. Nothing of genuine and human that Friedrich Wilhelm did but remained and remains an inheritance, not the smallest item of IT lost or losable;--and the rude foolish Boor-King (singular enough!) is found to be the only one that has gained by the game."-- _