History of Friedrich II of Prussia — Volume 16

On the third day of his Visit, Friedrich drove to Aurich, the seat of Government, and official little capital of Ost-Friesland; where triumphal arches, joyful reverences, concourses, demonstrations, sumptuous Dinner one item, awaited his Majesty: I know not if, in the way thither or back, he passed those "Three huge Oaks [or the rotted stems or roots of them] under which the Ancient Frisians, Lords of all between Weser and Rhine, were wont to assemble in Parliament" (WITHOUT Fourth Estate, or any Eloquence except of the purely Business sort),—or what his thoughts on the late Ost-Friesland Bandbox Parliaments may have been! He returned to Embden that night; and on the morrow started homewards; we may fancy, tolerably pleased with what he had seen.

"King Friedrich's main Objects of Pursuit in this Period," says a certain Author, whom we often follow, "I define as being Three. 1. Reform of the Law; 2. Furtherance of Husbandry and Industry in all kinds, especially of Shipping from Embden; 3. Improvement of his own Domesticities and Household Enjoyments,"—renewal of the Reinsberg Program, in short.

"In the First of these objects," continues he, "King Friedrich's success was very considerable, and got him great fame in the world. In his Second head of efforts, that of improving the Industries and Husbandries among his People, his success, though less noised of in foreign parts, was to the near observer still more remarkable. A perennial business with him, this; which, even in the time of War, he never neglects; and which springs out like a stemmed flood, whenever Peace leaves him free for it. His labors by all methods to awaken new branches of industry, to cherish and further the old, are incessant, manifold, unwearied; and will surprise the uninstructed reader, when he comes to study them. An airy, poetizing, bantering, lightly brilliant King, supposed to be serious mainly in things of War, how is he moiling and toiling, like an ever-vigilant Land-Steward, like the most industrious City Merchant, hardest-working Merchant's Clerk, to increase his industrial Capital by any the smallest item!

"One day, these things will deserve to be studied to the bottom; and to be set forth, by writing hands that are competent, for the instruction and example of Workers,—that is to say, of all men, Kings most of all, when there are again Kings. At present, I can only say they astonish me, and put me to shame: the unresting diligence displayed in them, and the immense sum-total of them,—what man, in any the noblest pursuit, can say that he has stood to it, six-and-forty years long, in the style of this man? Nor did the harvest fail; slow sure harvest, which sufficed a patient Friedrich in his own day; harvest now, in our day, visible to everybody: in a Prussia all shooting into manufactures, into commerces, opulences,—I only hope, not TOO fast, and on more solid terms than are universal at present! Those things might be didactic, truly, in various points, to this Generation; and worth looking back upon, from its high LAISSEZ-FAIRE altitudes, its triumphant Scrip-transactions and continents of gold-nuggets,—pleasing, it doubts not, to all the gods. To write well of what is called 'Political Economy' (meaning thereby increase of money's-worth) is reckoned meritorious, and our nearest approach to the rational sublime. But to accomplish said increase in a high and indisputable degree; and indisputably very much by your own endeavors wisely regulating those of others, does not that approach still nearer the sublime?

"To prevent disappointment, I ought to add that Friedrich is the reverse of orthodox in 'Political Economy;' that he had not faith in Free-Trade, but the reverse;—nor had ever heard of those ultimate Evangels, unlimited Competition, fair Start, and perfervid Race by all the world (towards 'CHEAP-AND-NASTY,' as the likeliest winning-post for all the world), which have since been vouchsafed us. Probably in the world there was never less of a Free-Trader! Constraint, regulation, encouragement, discouragement, reward, punishment; these he never doubted were the method, and that government was good everywhere if wise, bad only if not wise. And sure enough these methods, where human justice and the earnest sense and insight of a Friedrich preside over them, have results, which differ notably from opposite cases that can be imagined! The desperate notion of giving up government altogether, as a relief from human blockheadism in your governors, and their want even of a wish to be just or wise, had not entered into the thoughts of Friedrich; nor driven him upon trying to believe that such, in regard to any Human Interest whatever, was, or could be except for a little while in extremely developed cases, the true way of managing it. How disgusting, accordingly, is the Prussia of Friedrich to a Hanbury Williams; who has bad eyes and dirty spectacles, and hates Friedrich: how singular and lamentable to a Mirabeau Junior, who has good eyes, and loves him! No knave, no impertinent blockhead even, can follow his own beautiful devices here; but is instantly had up, or comes upon a turnpike strictly shut for him. 'Was the like ever heard of?' snarls Hanbury furiously (as an angry dog might, in a labyrinth it sees not the least use for): 'What unspeakable want of liberty!'—and reads to you as if he were lying outright; but generally is not, only exaggerating, tumbling upside down, to a furious degree; knocking against the labyrinth HE sees not the least use for. Mirabeau's Gospel of Free-Trade, preached in 1788, [MONARCHIE PRUSSIENNE he calls it (A LONDRES, privately Paris, 1788), 8 vols. 8vo; which is a Dead-Sea of Statistics, compiled by industrious Major Mauvillon, with this fresh current of a "Gospel" shining through it, very fresh and brisk, of few yards breadth;—dedicated to Papa, the true PROTevangelist of the thing.]—a comparatively recent Performance, though now some seventy or eighty years the senior of an English (unconscious) Fac-simile, which we have all had the pleasure of knowing,—will fall to be noticed afterwards [not by this Editor, we hope!]

"Many of Friedrich's restrictive notions,—as that of watching with such anxiety that 'money' (gold or silver coin) be not carried out of the Country,—will be found mistakes, not in orthodox Dismal Science as now taught, but in the nature of things; and indeed the Dismal Science will generally excommunicate them in the lump,—too. heedless that Fact has conspicuously vindicated the general sum-total of them, and declared it to be much truer than it seems to the Dismal Science. Dismal Science (if that were important to me) takes insufficient heed, and does not discriminate between times past and times present, times here and times there."

Certain it is, King Friedrich's success in National Husbandry was very great. The details of the very many new Manufactures, new successful ever-spreading Enterprises, fostered into existence by Friedrich; his Canal-makings, Road-makings, Bog-drainings, Colonizings and unwearied endeavorings in that kind, will require a Technical Philosopher one day; and will well reward such study, and trouble of recording in a human manner; but must lie massed up in mere outline on the present occasion. Friedrich, as Land-Father, Shepherd of the People, was great on the Husbandry side also; and we are to conceive him as a man of excellent practical sense, doing unweariedly his best in that kind, all his life long. Alone among modern Kings; his late Father the one exception; and even his Father hardly surpassing him in that particular.

In regard to Embden and the Shipping interests, Ost-Friesland awakened very ardent speculations, which were a novelty in Prussian affairs; nothing of Foreign Trade, except into the limited Baltic, had been heard of there since the Great Elector's time. The Great Elector had ships, Forts on the Coast of Africa; and tried hard for Atlantic Trade,—out of this same Embden; where, being summoned to protect in the troubles, he had got some footing as Contingent Heir withal, and kept a "Prussian Battalion" a good while. And now, on much fairer terms, not less diligently turned to account, it is his Great-Grandson's turn. Friedrich's successes in this department, the rather as Embden and Ost-Friesland have in our time ceased to be Prussian, are not much worth speaking of; but they connect themselves with some points still slightly memorable to us. How, for example, his vigilantes and endeavors on this score brought him into rubbings, not collisions, but jealousies and gratings, with the English and Dutch, the reader will see anon.

Law-reform is gloriously prosperous; Husbandry the like, and Shipping Interest itself as yet. But in the Third grand Head, that of realizing the Reinsberg Program, beautifying his Domesticities, and bringing his own Hearth and Household nearer the Ideal, Friedrich was nothing like so successful; in fact had no success at all. That flattering Reinsberg Program, it is singular how Friedrich cannot help trying it by every new chance, nor cast the notion out of him that there must be a kind of Muses'-Heaven realizable on Earth! That is the Biographic Phenomenon which has survived of those Years; and to that we will almost exclusively address ourselves, on behalf of ingenuous readers.

Chapter IX.—SECOND ACT OF THE VOLTAIRE VISIT

Voltaire's Visit lasted, in all, about Thirty-two Months; and is divisible into Three Acts or Stages. The first we have seen: how it commenced in brightness as of the sun, and ended, by that Hirsch business, in whirlwinds of smoke and soot,—Voltaire retiring, on his passionate prayer, to that silent Country-house which he calls the Marquisat; there to lie in hospital, and wash himself a little, and let the skies wash themselves.

The Hirsch business having blown over, as all things do, Voltaire resumed his place among the Court-Planets, and did his revolutions; striving to forget that there ever was a Hirsch, or a soot-explosion of that nature. In words nobody reminded him of it, the King least of all: and by degrees matters were again tolerably glorious, and all might have gone well enough; though the primal perfect splendor, such fuliginous reminiscence being ineffaceable, never could be quite re-attained. The diamond Cross of Merit, the Chamberlain gold Key, hung bright upon the man; a man the admired of men. He had work to do: work of his own which he reckoned priceless (that immortal SIECLE DE LOUIS QUATORZE; which he stood by, and honestly did, while here; the one fixed axis in those fooleries and whirlings of his);—work for the King, "two hours, one hour, a day," which the King reckoned priceless in its sort. For Friedrich himself Voltaire has, with touches of real love coming out now and then, a very sincere admiration mixed with fear; and delights in shining to him, and being well with him, as the greatest pleasure now left in life. Besides the King, he had society enough, French in type, and brilliant enough: plenty of society; or, at his wish, what was still better, none at all. He was bedded, boarded, lodged, as if beneficent fairies had done it for him; and for all these things no price asked, you might say, but that he would not throw himself out of window! Had the man been wise—But he was not wise. He had, if no big gloomy devil in him among the bright angels that were there, a multitude of ravening tumultuary imps, or little devils very ILL-CHAINED; and was lodged, he and his restless little devils, in a skin far too thin for him and them!—

Reckoning up the matter, one cannot find that Voltaire ever could have been a blessing at Berlin, either for Friedrich or himself; and it is to be owned that Friedrich was not wise in so longing for him, or clasping him so frankly in his arms. As Friedrich, by this time, probably begins to discover;—though indeed to Friedrich the thing is of finite moment; by no means of infinite, as it was to Voltaire. "At worst, nothing but a little money thrown away!" thinks Friedrich: "Sure enough, this is a strange Trismegistus, this of mine: star fire-work shall we call him, or terrestrial smoke-and-soot work? But one can fence oneself against the blind vagaries of the man; and get a great deal of good by him, in the lucid intervals." To Voltaire himself the position is most agitating; but then its glories, were there nothing more! Besides he is always thinking to quit it shortly; which is a great sedative in troubles. What with intermittencies (safe hidings in one's MARQUISAT, or vacant interlunar cave), with alternations of offence and reconcilement; what with occasional actual flights to Paris (whitherward Voltaire is always busy to keep a postern open; and of which there is frequent talk, and almost continual thought, all along), flights to be called "visits," and privately intending to be final, but never proving so,—the Voltaire-Friedrich relation, if left to itself, might perhaps long have staggered about, and not ended as it did.

But, alas, no relation can be left to itself in this world,—especially if you have a porous skin! There were other French here, as well as Voltaire, revolving in the Court-circle; and that, beyond all others, proved the fatal circumstance to him. "NE SAVEZ-VOUS PAS, Don't you know," said he to Chancellor Jarriges one day, "that when there are two Frenchmen in a Foreign Court or Country, one of them must die (FAUT QUE L'UN DES DEUX PERISSE)?" [Seyfarth, ii. 191; &c. &c.] Which shocked the mind of Jarriges; but had a kind of truth, too. Jew Hirsch, run into for low smuggling purposes, had been a Cape of Storms, difficult to weather; but the continual leeshore were those French,—with a heavy gale on, and one of the rashest pilots! He did strike the breakers there, at last; and it is well known, total shipwreck was the issue. Our Second Act, holding out dubiously, in continual perils, till Autumn, 1752, will have to pass then into a Third of darker complexion, and into a Catastrophe very dark indeed.

Catastrophe which, by farther ill accident, proved noisy in the extreme; producing world-wide shrieks from the one party, stone-silence from the other; which were answered by unlimited hooting, catcalling and haha-ing from all parts of the World-Theatre, upon both the shrieky and the silent party; catcalling not fallen quite dead to this day. To Friedrich the catcalling was not momentous (being used to such things); though to poor Voltaire it was unlimitedly so:—and to readers interested in this memorable Pair of Men, the rights and wrongs of the Affair ought to be rendered authentically conceivable, now at last. Were it humanly possible,—after so much catcalling at random! Smelfungus has a right to say, speaking of this matter:—

"Never was such a jumble of loud-roaring ignorances, delusions and confusions, as the current Records of it are. Editors, especially French Editors, treating of a Hyperborean, Cimmerian subject, like this, are easy-going creatures. And truly they have left it for us in a wonderful state. Dateless, much of it, by nature; and, by the lazy Editors, MISdated into very chaos; jumbling along there, in mad defiance of top and bottom; often the very Year given wrong:—full everywhere of lazy darkness, irradiated only by stupid rages, ill-directed mockeries:—and for issue, cheerfully malicious hootings from the general mob of mankind, with unbounded contempt of their betters; which is not pleasant to see. When mobs do get together, round any signal object; and editorial gentlemen, with talent for it, pour out from their respective barrel-heads, in a persuasive manner, instead of knowledge, ignorance set on fire, they are capable of carrying it far!—Will it be possible to pick out the small glimmerings of real light, from this mad dance of will-o'-wisps and fire-flies thrown into agitation?"

It will be very difficult, my friend;—why did not you yourself do it? Most true, "those actual Voltaire-Friedrich LETTERS of the time are a resource, and pretty much the sole one: Letters a good few, still extant; which all HAD their bit of meaning; and have it still, if well tortured till they give it out, or give some glimmer of it out:"—but you have not tortured them; you have left it to me, if I would! As I assuredly will not (never fear, reader!)—except in the thriftiest degree.

DETACHED FEATURES (NOT FABULOUS) OF VOLTAIRE AND HIS BERLIN-POTSDAM ENVIRONMENT IN 1751-1752

To the outside crowd of observers, and to himself in good moments, Voltaire represents his situation as the finest in the world:—

"Potsdam is Sparta and Athens joined in one; nothing but reviewing and poetry day by day. The Algarottis, the Maupertuises, are here; have each his work, serious for himself; then gay Supper with a King, who is a great man and the soul of good company."... Sparta and Athens, I tell you: "a Camp of Mars and the Garden of Epicurus; trumpets and violins, War and Philosophy. I have my time all to myself; am at Court and in freedom,—if I were not entirely free, neither an enormous Pension, nor a Gold Key tearing out one's pocket, nor a halter (LICOU), which they call CORDON of an ORDER, nor even the Suppers with a Philosopher who has gained Five Battles, could yield me the least happiness." [—OEuvres,—lxxiv. 325, 326, 333 (Letters, to D'Argental and others, "27th April-8th May, 1751").] Looked at by you, my outside friends,—ah, had I health and YOU here, what a situation!

But seen from within, it is far otherwise. Alongside of these warblings of a heart grateful to the first of Kings, there goes on a series of utterances to Niece Denis, remarkable for the misery driven into meanness, that can be read in them. Ill-health, discontent, vague terror, suspicion that dare not go to sleep; a strange vague terror, shapeless or taking all shapes—a body diseased and a mind diseased. Fear, quaking continually for nothing at all, is not to be borne in a handsome manner. And it passes, often enough (in these poor LETTERS), into transient malignity, into gusts of trembling hatred, with a tendency to relieve oneself by private scandal of the house we are in. Seldom was a miserabler wrong-side seen to a bit of royal tapestry. A man hunted by the little devils that dwell unchained within himself; like Pentheus by the Maenads, like Actaeon by his own Dogs. Nay, without devils, with only those terrible bowels of mine, and scorbutic gums, it is bad enough: "Glorious promotions to me here," sneers he bitterly; "but one thing is indisputable, I have lost seven of my poor residue of teeth since I came!" In truth, we are in a sadly scorbutic state; and that, and the devils we lodge within ourselves, is the one real evil. Could not Suspicion—why cannot she!—take her natural rest; and all these terrors vanish? Oh, M. de Voltaire!—The practical purport, to Niece Denis, always is: Keep my retreat to Paris open; in the name of Heaven, no obstruction that way!

Miserable indeed; a man fatally unfit for his present element! But he has Two considerable Sedatives, all along; two, and no third visible to me. Sedative FIRST: that, he can, at any time, quit this illustrious Tartarus-Elysium, the envy of mankind;—and indeed, practically, he is always as if on the slip; thinking to be off shortly, for a time, or in permanence; can be off at once, if things grow too bad. Sedative SECOND is far better: His own labor on LOUIS QUATORZE, which is steadily going on, and must have been a potent quietus in those Court-whirlwinds inward and outward.

From Berlin, already in Autumn, 1750, Voltaire writes to D'Argental: "I sha'n't go to Italy this Autumn [nor ever in my life], as I had projected. But I will come to see YOU in the course of November" (far from it, I got into STEUER-SCHEINE then!)—And again, after some weeks: "I have put off my journey to Italy for a year. Next Winter too, therefore, I shall see you," on the road thither. "To my Country, since you live in it, I will make frequent visits," very!" Italy and the King of Prussia are two old passions with me; but I cannot treat Frederic-le-Grand as I can the Holy Father, with a mere look in passing." [To D'Argental, "Berlin, 14th September,—Potsdam, 15th October, 1750" (—OEuvres,—lxxiv. 220, 237).] Let this one, to which many might be added, serve as sample of Sedative First, or the power and intention to be off before long.

In regard to Sedative Second, again:... "The happiest circumstance is, brought with me all my LOUIS-FOURTEENTH Papers and Excerpts. 'I get from Leipzig, if no nearer, whatever Books are needed;'" and labor faithfully at this immortal Production. Yes, day by day, to see growing, by the cunning of one's own right hand, such perennial Solomon's-Temple of a SIECLE DE LOUIS QUATORZE:—which of your Kings, or truculent, Tiglath-Pilesers, could do that? To poor me, even in the Potsdam tempests, it is possible: what ugliest day is not beautiful that sees a stone or two added there!—Daily Voltaire sees himself at work on his SIECLE, on those fine terms; trowel in one hand, weapon of war in the other. And does actually accomplish it, in the course of this Year 1751,—with a great deal of punctuality and severe painstaking; which readers of our day, fallen careless of the subject, are little aware of, on Voltaire's behalf. Voltaire's reward was, that he did NOT go mad in that Berlin element, but had throughout a bower-anchor to ride by. "The King of France continues me as Gentleman of the Chamber, say you; but has taken away my Title of Historiographer? That latter, however, shall still be my function. 'My present independence has given weight to my verdicts on matters. Probably I never could have written this Book at Paris.' A consolation for one's exile, MON ENFANT." [To Niece Denis (—OEuvres,—lxxiv. 247, &c. &c.), "28th October, 1750," and subsequent dates.]

It is proper also to observe that, besides shining at the King's Suppers like no other, Voltaire applies himself honestly to do for his Majesty the small work required of him,—that of Verse-correcting now and then. Two Specimens exist; two Pieces criticised, ODE AUX PRUSSIENS, and THE ART OF WAR: portions of that Reprint now going on ("to the extent of Twelve Copies,"—woe lies in one of them, most unexpected at this time!) "AU DONJON DU CHATEAU;"—under benefit of Voltaire's remarks. Which one reads curiously, not without some surprise. [In—OEuvres de Frederic,—x. 276-303.] Surprise, first at Voltaire's official fidelity; his frankness, rigorous strictness in this small duty: then at the kind of correcting, instructing and lessoning, that had been demanded of him by his Royal Pupil. Mere grammatical stylistic skin-deep work: nothing (or, at least, in these Specimens nothing) of attempt upon the interior structure, or the interior harmony even of utterance: solely the Parisian niceties, graces, laws of poetic language, the FAS and the NEFAS in regard to all that: this is what his Majesty would fain be taught from the fountain-head;—one wonders his Majesty did not learn to spell, which might have been got from a lower source!—And all this Voltaire does teach with great strictness. For example, in the very first line, in the very first word, set, before him:—

"PRUSSIENS, QUE LA VALEUR CONDUISIT A LA GLOIRE," so Friedrich had written (ODE AUX PRUSSIENS, which is specimen First); and thus Voltaire criticises: "The Hero here makes his PRUSSIENS of two syllables; and afterwards, in another strophe, he grants them three. A King is master of his favors. At the same time, one does require a little uniformity; and the IENS are usually of two syllables, as LIENS, SILESIENS, AUTRICHIENS; excepting the monosyllables BIEN, RIEN"—Enough, enough!—A severe, punctual, painstaking Voltaire, sitting with the schoolmaster's bonnet on head; ferula visible, if not actually in hand. For which, as appears, his Majesty was very grateful to the Trismegistus of men.

Voltaire's flatteries to Friedrich, in those scattered little Billets with their snatches of verse, are the prettiest in the world,—and approach very near to sincerity, though seldom quite attaining it. Something traceable of false, of suspicious, feline, nearly always, in those seductive warblings; which otherwise are the most melodious bits of idle ingenuity the human brain has ever spun from itself. For instance, this heading of a Note sent from one room to another,—perhaps with pieces of an ODE AUX PRUSSIENS accompanying:—