History of Friedrich II of Prussia — Volume 04

For the poor Heidelberg Consistorium, as they could not undertake to give up their Church on request of his Serenity,—"How dare we, or can we?" answered they,—had been driven out by compulsion and stratagem. Partly strategic was the plan adopted, to avoid violence; smith's picklocks being employed, and also mason's crowbars: but the end was, On the 31st of August, 1719, Consistorium and Congregation found themselves fairly in the street, and the HEILIGE-GEIST KIRCHE clean gone from them. Screen of the Choir is torn down; one big Catholic edifice now; getting decorated into a Court Church, where Serene Highness may feel his mind comfortable.

The poor Heidelbergers, thus thrown into the street, made applications, lamentations; but with small prospect of help: to whom apply with any sure prospect? Remonstrances from Hessen-Cassel have proved unavailing with his bigoted Serene Highness. CORPS EVANGELICORUM, so presided over as at present, what can be had of such a Corpus? Long-winded lucubrations at the utmost; real action, in such a matter; none. Or will the Kaiser, his Jesuits advising him, interfere to do us justice? Kur-Mainz and the rest;—it is everywhere one story. Everywhere unhappy Protestantism getting bad usage, and ever worse; and no Corpus Evangelicorum, or appointed Watchdog, doing other than hang its ears, and look sorry for itself and us!—

The Heidelbergers, however, had applied to Friedrich Wilhelm among others. Friedrich Wilhelm, who had long looked on these Anti-Protestant phenomena with increasing anger, found now that this of the Heidelberg Catechism and HEILIGE-GEIST KIRCHE was enough to make one's patience run over. Your unruly Catholic bull, plunging about, and goring men in that mad absurd manner, it will behoove that somebody take him by the horns, or by the tail, and teach him manners. Teach him, not by vocal precepts, it is likely, which would avail nothing on such a brute, but by practical cudgelling and scourging to the due pitch. Pacific Friedrich Wilhelm perceived that he himself would have to do that disagreeable feat:—the growl of him, on coming to such resolution, must have been consolatory to these poor Heidelbergers, when they applied!—His plan is very simple, as the plans of genius are; but a plan leading direct to the end desired, and probably the only one that would have done so, in the circumstances. Cudgel in hand, he takes the Catholic bull,—shall we say, by the horns?—more properly perhaps by the tail; and teaches him manners.

FRIEDRICH WILHELM'S METHOD;—PROVES REMEDIAL IN HEIDELBERG

Friedrich Wilhelm's first step, of course, was to remonstrate pacifically with his Serene Highness on the Heidelberg-Church affair: from this he probably expected nothing; nor did he get anything. Getting nothing from this, and the countenance of external Protestant Powers, especially of George I. and the Dutch, being promised him in ulterior measures, he directed his Administrative Officials in Magdeburg, in Minden, in Hamersleben, where are Catholic Foundations of importance, to assemble the Catholic Canons, Abbots, chief Priests and all whom it might concern in these three Places, and to signify to them as follows:—

"From us, your Protestant Sovereign, you yourselves and all men will witness, you have hitherto had the best of usage, fair-play, according to the Laws of the REICH, and even-more. With the Protestants at Heidelberg, on the part of the Catholic Powers, it is different. It must cease to be different; it must become the same. And to make it do so, you are the implement I have. Sorry for it, but there is no other handy. From this day your Churches also are closed, your Public Worship ceases, and furthermore your Revenues cease; and all makes dead halt, and falls torpid in respect of you. From this day; and so continues, till the day (may it be soon!) when the Heidelberg Church of the Holy Ghost is opened again, and right done in that question. Be it yours to speed such day: it is you that can and will, you who know those high Catholic regions, inaccessible to your Protestant Sovereign. Till then you are as dead men; temporarily fallen dead for a purpose. And herewith God have you in his keeping!" [Mauvillon, i. 347, 349.]

That was Friedrich Wilhelm's plan; the simplest, but probably the one effectual plan. Infallible this plan, if you dare stand upon it; which Friedrich Wilhelm does. He has a formidable Army, ready for fight; a Treasury or Army-chest in good order. George I. seconds, according to bargain; shuts the Catholic Church at Zelle in his Luneburg Country, in like fashion; Dutch, too, and Swiss will endorse the matter, should it grow too serious. All which, involving some diplomacy and correspondence, is managed with the due promptitude, moreover. [Church of Zelle shut up, 4th November; Minden, 28th November; Monastery of Hamersleben, 3d December, &c. (Putter, Historische Entwickelung der hautigen Staatsverfassung des Teutschen Reichs, Gottingen, 1788, ii. 384, 390).] And so certain doors are locked; and Friedrich Wilhelm's word, unalterable as gravitation, has gone forth. In this manner is the mad Catholic bull taken by the TAIL: keep fast hold, and apply your cudgel duly in that attitude, he will not gore you any more!

The Magdeburg-Hamersleben people shrieked piteously; not to Friedrich Wilhelm, whom they knew to be deaf on that side of his head, but to the Kaiser, to the Pope, to the Serenity of Heidelberg. Serene Highness of Heidelberg was much huffed; Kaiser dreadfully so, and wrote heavy menacing rebukes. To which Friedrich Wilhelm listened with a minimum of reply; keeping firm hold of the tail, in such bellowing of the animal. The end was, Serene Highness had to comply; within three months, Kaiser, Serene Highness and the other parties interested, found that there would be nothing for it but to compose themselves, and do what was just. April 16th, 1720, the Protestants are reinstated in their HEILIGE-GEIST KIRCHE; Heidelberg Catechism goes its free course again, May 16th; and one Baron Reck [Michaelis, ii. 95; Putter, ii. 384, 390; Buchholz, pp. 61-63.] is appointed Commissioner, from the CORPUS EVANGELICORUM, to Heidelberg; who continues rigorously inspecting Church matters there for a considerable time, much to the grief of Highness and Jesuits, till he can report that all is as it should be on that head. Karl Philip felt so disgusted with these results, he removed his Court, that same year, to Mannheim; quitted Heidelberg; to the discouragement and visible decay of the place; and, in spite of humble petitions and remonstrances, never would return; neither he nor those that followed him would shift from Mannheim again, to this day.

PRUSSIAN MAJESTY HAS DISPLEASED THE KAISER AND THE KING OF POLAND

Friedrich Wilhelm's praises from the Protestant public were great, on this occasion. Nor can we, who lie much farther from it in every sense, refuse him some grin of approval. Act, and manner of doing the act, are creditably of a piece with Friedrich Wilhelm; physiognomic of the rugged veracious man. It is one of several such acts done by him: for it was a duty apt to recur in Germany, in his day. This duty Friedrich Wilhelm, a solid Protestant after his sort, and convinced of the "nothingness and nonsensicality (UNGRUND UND ABSURDITAT) of Papistry," was always honorably prompt to do. There is an honest bacon-and-greens conscience in the man; almost the one conscience you can find in any royal man of that day. Promptly, without tremulous counting of costs, he always starts up, solid as oak, on the occurrence of such a thing, and says, "That is unjust; contrary to the Treaty of Westphalia; you will have to put down that!"—And if words avail not, his plan is always the same: Clap a similar thumbscrew, pressure equitably calculated, on the Catholics of Prussia; these can complain to their Popes and Jesuit Dignitaries: these are under thumbscrew till the Protestant pressure be removed. Which always did rectify the matter in a little time. One other of these instances, that of the Salzburg Protestants, the last such instance, as this of Heidelberg was the first, will by and by claim notice from us.

It is very observable, how Friedrich Wilhelm, hating quarrels, was ever ready to turn out for quarrel on such an occasion; though otherwise conspicuously a King who stayed well at home, looking after his own affairs; meddling with no neighbor that would be at peace with him. This properly is Friedrich Wilhelm's "sphere of political activity" among his contemporaries; this small quasi-domestic sphere, of forbidding injury to Protestants. A most small sphere, but then a genuine one: nor did he seek even this, had it not forced itself upon him. And truly we might ask, What has become of the other more considerable "spheres" in that epoch? The supremest loud-trumpeting "political activities" which then filled the world and its newspapers, what has the upshot of them universally been? Zero, and oblivion; no other. While this poor Friedrich-Wilhelm sphere is perhaps still a countable quantity. Wise is he who stays well at home, and does the duty he finds lying there!—

Great favor from the Protestant public: but, on the other hand, his Majesty had given offence in high places. What help for it? The thing was a point of conscience with him; natural to the surly Royal Overseer, going his rounds in the world, stick in hand! However, the Kaiser was altogether gloomy of brow at such disobedience. A Kaiser unfriendly to Friedrich Wilhelm: witness that of the RITTER-DIENST (our unreasonable Magdeburg Ritters, countenanced by him, on such terms, in such style too), and other offensive instances that could be given. Perhaps the Kaiser will not always continue gloomy of brow; perhaps the thoughts of the Imperial breast may alter, on our behalf or his own, one day?—

Nor could King August the Physically Strong be glad to see his "Director" function virtually superseded, in this triumphant way. A year or two ago, Friedrich Wilhelm had, with the due cautions and politic reserves, inquired of the CORPUS EVANGELICORUM, "If they thought the present Directorship (that of August the Physically Strong) a good one?" and "Whether he, Friedrich Wilhelm, ought not perhaps himself to be Director?"—To which, though the answer was clear as noonday, this poor Corpus had only mumbled some "QUIETA NON MOVERE," or other wise-foolish saw; and helplessly shrugged its shoulders. [1717-1719, when August's KURPRINZ, Heir-Apparent, likewise declared himself Papist, to the horror and astonishment of poor Saxony, and wedded the late Kaiser Joseph's Daughter:—not to Father August's horror; who was steering towards "popularity in Poland," "hereditary Polish Crown," &c. with the young man. (Buchholz, i. 53-56.)] But King August himself,—though a jovial social kind of animal, quite otherwise occupied in the world; busy producing his three hundred and fifty-four Bastards there, and not careful of Church matters at all,—had expressed his indignant surprise. And now, it would seem nevertheless, though the title remains where it was, the function has fallen to another, who actually does it: a thing to provoke comparisons in the public.

Clement, the Hungarian forger, vender of false state-secrets, is well hanged; went to the gallows (18th April, 1720) with much circumstance, just two days before that Heidelberg Church was got reopened. But the suspicions sown by Clement cannot quite be abolished by the hanging of him: Forger indisputably; but who knows whether he had not something of fact for his? What with Clement, what with this Heidelberg business, the Court of Berlin has fallen wrong with Dresden, with Vienna itself, and important clouds have risen.

There is an absurd Flame of War, blown out by Admiral Byng; and a new Man of Genius announces himself to the dim Populations.

The poor Kaiser himself is otherwise in trouble of his own, at this time. The Spaniards and he have fallen out, in spite of Utrecht Treaty and Rastadt ditto; the Spaniards have taken Sicily from him; and precisely in those days while Karl Philip took to shutting up the HEILIGE-GEIST Church at Heidelberg, there was, loud enough in all the Newspapers, silent as it now is, a "Siege of Messina" going on; Imperial and Piedmontese troops doing duty by land, Admiral Byng still more effectively by sea, for the purpose of getting Sicily back. Which was achieved by and by, though at an extremely languid pace. [Byng's Sea-fight, 10th August, 1718 (Campbell's Lives of the Admirals, iii. 468); whereupon the Spaniards, who had hardly yet completed their capture of Messina, are besieged in it;—29th October, 1719, Messina retaken (this is the "Siege of Messina"): February, 1720, Peace is clapt up (the chief article, that Alberoni shall be packed away), and a "Congress of Cambrai" is to meet, and settle everything.] One of the most tedious Sieges; one of the paltriest languid Wars (of extreme virulence and extreme feebleness, neither party having any cash left), and for an object which could not be excelled in insignificance. Object highly interesting to Kaiser Karl VI. and Elizabeth Farnese Termagant Queen of Spain. These two were red, or even were pale, with interest in it; and to the rest of Adam's Posterity it was not intrinsically worth an ounce of gunpowder, many tons of that and of better commodities as they had to spend upon it. True, the Spanish Navy got well lamed in the business; Spanish Fleet blown mostly to destruction,—"Roads of Messina, 10th August, 1718," by the dexterous Byng (a creditable handy figure both in Peace and War) and his considerable Sea-fight there:—if that was an object to Spain or mankind, that was accomplished. But the "War," except that many men were killed in it, and much vain babble was uttered upon it, ranks otherwise with that of Don Quixote, for conquest of the enchanted Helmet of Mambrino, which when looked into proved to be a Barber's Basin.

Congress of Cambrai, and other high Gatherings and convulsive Doings, which all proved futile, and look almost like Lapland witchcraft now to us, will have to follow this futility of a War. It is the first of a long series of enchanted adventures, on which Kaiser Karl,—duelling with that Spanish Virago, Satan's Invisible World in the rear of her,—has now embarked, to the woe of mankind, for the rest of his life. The first of those terrifico-ludicrous paroxysms of crisis into which he throws the European Universe; he with his Enchanted Barber's-Basin enterprises;—as perhaps was fit enough, in an epoch presided over by the Nightmares. Congress of Cambrai is to follow; and much else equally spectral. About all which there will be enough to say anon! For it was a fearful operation, though a ludicrous one, this of the poor Kaiser; and it tormented not the big Nations only, and threw an absurd Europe into paroxysm after paroxysm; but it whirled up, in its wide-weeping skirts, our little Fritz and his Sister, and almost dashed the lives out of them, as we shall see! Which last is perhaps the one claim it now has to a cursory mention from mankind.

Byng's Sea-fight, done with due dexterity of manoeuvring, and then with due emphasis of broadsiding, decisive of that absurd War, and almost the one creditable action in it, dates itself 10th August, 1718. And about three months later, on the mimic stage at Paris there came out a piece, OEDIPE the title of it, [18th November, 1718.] by one Francois Arouet, a young gentleman about twenty-two; and had such a run as seldom was;—apprising the French Populations that, to all appearance, a new man of genius had appeared among them (not intimating what work he would do); and greatly angering old M. Arouet of the Chamber of Accouuts; who thereby found his Son as good as cast into the whirlpools, and a solid Law-career thenceforth impossible for the young fool.—The name of that "M. Arouet junior" changes itself, some years hence, into M. DE VOLTAIRE; under which latter designation he will conspicuously reappear in this Narrative.

And now we will go to our little Crown-Prince again;—ignorant, he, of all this that is mounting up in the distance, and that it will envelop him one day.

Chapter XI. — ON THE CROWN-PRINCE'S PROGRESS IN HIS SCHOOLING

Wilhelmina says, [Memoires, i. 22.] her Brother was "slow" in learning: we may presume, she means idle, volatile, not always prompt in fixing his attention to what did not interest him. Moreover, he was often weakly in health, as she herself adds; so that exertion was not recommendable for him. Herr von Loen (a witty Prussian Official, and famed man-of-letters once, though forgotten now) testifies expressly that the Boy was of bright parts, and that he made rapid progress. "The Crown-Prince manifests in this tender age [his seventh year] an uncommon capacity; nay we may say, something quite extraordinary (etwas ganz Ausserordentliches). He is a most alert and vivacious Prince; he has fine and sprightly manners; and shows a certain kindly sociality, and so affectionate a disposition that all things may be hoped of him. The French Lady who [under Roucoulles] has had charge of his learning hitherto, cannot speak of him without enthusiasm. 'C'est un esprit ange'lique (a little angel),' she is wont to say. He takes up, and learns, whatever is put before him, with the greatest facility." [Van Loen, Kleine Schriften, ii. 27 (as cited in Rodenbeck, No. iv. 479).]

For the rest, that Friedrich Wilhelm's intentions and Rhadamanthine regulations, in regard to him, were fulfilled in every point, we will by no means affirm. Rules of such exceeding preciseness, if grounded here and there only on the SIC-VOLO, how could they be always kept, except on the surface and to the eye merely? The good Duhan, diligent to open his pupil's mind, and give Nature fair-play, had practically found it inexpedient to tie him too rigorously to the arbitrary formal departments where no natural curiosity, but only order from without, urges the ingenious pupil. What maximum strictness in school-drill there can have been, we may infer from one thing, were there no other: the ingenious Pupil's mode of SPELLING. Fritz learned to write a fine, free-flowing, rapid and legible business-hand; "Arithmetic" too, "Geography," and many other Useful Knowledges that had some geniality of character, or attractiveness in practice, were among his acquisitions; much, very much he learned in the course of his life; but to SPELL, much more to punctuate, and subdue the higher mysteries of Grammar to himself, was always an unachievable perfection. He did improve somewhat in after life; but here is the length to which he had carried that necessary art in the course of nine years' exertion, under Duhan and the subsidiary preceptors; it is in the following words and alphabetic letters that he gratefully bids Duhan farewell,—who surely cannot have been a very strict drill-sergeant in the arbitrary branches of schooling!

"Mon cher Duhan Je Vous promais (PROMETS) que quand j'aurez (J'AURAI) mon propre argent en main, je Vous donnerez (DONNERAI) enuelement (ANNUELLEMENT) 2400 ecu (ECUS) par an, et je vous aimerais (AIMERAI) toujour encor (TOUJORS ENCORE) un peu plus q'asteure (QU'A CETTE HEURE) s'il me l'est (M'EST) posible (POSSIBLE)."

"MY DEAR DUHAN,—I promise to you, that when I shall have my money in my own hands, I will give you annually 2400 crowns [say 350 pounds] EVERY YEAR; and that I will love you always even a little more than at present, if that be possible.

"FRIDERIC P.R. [Prince-Royal]."

"POTSDAM, le 20 de juin, 1727." [Preuss, i. 22.]

The Document has otherwise its beauty; but such is the spelling of it. In fact his Grammar, as he would himself now and then regretfully discern, in riper years, with some transient attempt or resolution to remedy or help it, seems to have come mainly by nature; so likewise his "STYLUS" both in French and German,—a very fair style, too, in the former dialect:—but as to his spelling, let him try as he liked, he never came within sight of perfection.

The things ordered with such rigorous minuteness, if but arbitrary things, were apt to be neglected; the things forbidden, especially in the like case, were apt to become doubly tempting. It appears, the prohibition of Latin gave rise to various attempts, on the part of Friedrich, to attain that desirable Language. Secret lessons, not from Duhan, but no doubt with Duhan's connivance, were from time to time undertaken with this view: once, it is recorded, the vigilant Friedrich Wilhelm, going his rounds, came upon Fritz and one of his Preceptors (not Duhan but a subaltern) actually engaged in this illicit employment. Friedrich himself was wont to relate this anecdote in after life. [Busching, Beitrage zu der Lebensgeschichte denkwurdiger Personen, v. 33. Preuss, i. 24.] They had Latin books, dictionaries, grammars on the table, all the contraband apparatus; busy with it there, like a pair of coiners taken in the fact. Among other Books was a copy of the Golden Bull of Kaiser Karl IV.,—Aurea Bulla, from the little golden BULLETS or pellets hung to it,—by which sublime Document, as perhaps we hinted long ago, certain so-called Fundamental Constitutions, or at least formalities and solemn practices, method of election, rule of precedence, and the like, of the Holy Roman Empire, had at last been settled on a sure footing, by that busy little Kaiser, some three hundred and fifty years before; a Document venerable almost next to the Bible in Friedrich Wilhelm's loyal eyes, "What is this; what are you venturing upon here?" exclaims Paternal Vigilance, in an astonished dangerous tone. "Ihro Majestat, ich explicire dem Prinzen Auream Bullam," exclaimed the trembling pedagogue: "Your Majesty, I am explaining AUREA BULLA [Golden Bull] to the Prince!"—"Dog, I will Golden-Bull you!" said his Majesty, flourishing his rattan, "Ich will dich, Schurke, be-auream-bullam!" which sent the terrified wretch off at the top of his speed, and ended the Latin for that time. [Forster, i. 356.]

Friedrich's Latin could never come to much, under these impediments. But he retained some smatterings of it in mature life; and was rather fond of producing his classical scraps,—often in an altogether mouldy, and indeed hitherto inexplicable condition. "De gustibus non est disputandus," "Beati possEdentes," "CompIlle intrare," "BeatUS pauperes spiritus;" the meaning of these can be guessed: but "Tot verbas tot spondera," for example,—what can any commentator make of that? "Festina lente," "Dominus vobiscum," "Flectamus genua," "Quod bene notandum;" these phrases too, and some three or four others of the like, have been riddled from his Writings by diligent men: [Preuss (i. 24) furnishes the whole stock of them.] "O tempora, O mores! You see, I don't forget my Latin," writes he once.

The worst fruit of these contraband operations was, that they involved the Boy in clandestine practices, secret disobediences, apt to be found out from time to time, and tended to alienate his Father from him. Of which sad mutual humor we already find traces in that early Wusterhausen Document: "Not to be so dirty," says the reproving Father. And the Boy does not take to hunting at all, likes verses, story-books, flute-playing better; seems to be of effeminate tendencies, an EFFEMINIRTER KERL; affects French modes, combs out his hair like a cockatoo, the foolish French fop, instead of conforming to the Army-regulation, which prescribes close-cropping and a club!

This latter grievance Friedrich Wilhelm decided, at last, to abate, and have done with; this, for one. It is an authentic fact, though not dated,—dating perhaps from about Fritz's fifteenth year. "Fritz is a QUERPFEIFER UND POET," not a Soldier! would his indignant Father growl; looking at those foreign effeminate ways of his. QUERPFEIFE, that is simply "German-flute," "CROSS-PIPE" (or FIFE of any kind, for we English have thriftily made two useful words out of the Deutsch root); "Cross-pipe," being held across the mouth horizontally. Worthless employment, if you are not born to be of the regimental band! thinks Friedrich Wilhelm. Fritz is celebrated, too, for his fine foot; a dapper little fellow, altogether pretty in the eyes of simple female courtiers, with his blond locks combed out at the temples, with his bright eyes, sharp wit, and sparkling capricious ways. The cockatoo locks, these at least we will abate! decides the Paternal mind.

And so, unexpectedly, Friedrich Wilhelm has commanded these bright locks, as contrary to military fashion, of which Fritz has now unworthily the honor of being a specimen, to be ruthlessly shorn away. Inexorable: the HOF-CHIRURGUS (Court-Surgeon, of the nature of Barber-Surgeon), with scissors and comb, is here; ruthless Father standing by. Crop him, my jolly Barber; close down to the accurate standard; soaped club, instead of flowing locks; we suffer no exceptions in this military department: I stand here till it is done. Poor Fritz, they say, had tears in his eyes; but what help in tears? The judicious Chirurgus, however, proved merciful. The judicious Chirurgus struck in as if nothing loath, snack, snack; and made a great show of clipping. Friedrich Wilhelm took a newspaper till the job were done; the judicious Barber, still making a great show of work, combed back rather than cut off these Apollo locks; did Fritz accurately into soaped club, to the cursory eye; but left him capable of shaking out his chevelure again on occasion,—to the lasting gratitude of Fritz. [Preuss, i. 16.]

THE NOLTENIUS-AND-PANZENDORF DRILL-EXERCISE

On the whole, as we said, a youth needs good assimilating power, if he is to grow in this world! Noltenius aud Panzendorf, for instance, they were busy "teaching Friedrich religion." Rather a strange operation this too, if we were to look into it. We will not look too closely. Another pair of excellent most solemn drill-sergeants, in clerical black serge; they also are busy instilling dark doctrines into the bright young Boy, so far as possible; but do not seem at any time to have made too deep an impression on him. May we not say that, in matter of religion too, Friedrich was but ill-bested? Enlightened Edict-of-Nantes Protestantism, a cross between Bayle and Calvin: that was but indifferent babe's milk to the little creature. Nor could Noltenius's Catechism, and ponderous drill-exercise in orthodox theology, much inspire a clear soul with pieties, and tendencies to soar Heavenward.

Alas, it is a dreary litter indeed, mere wagon-load on wagon-load of shot-rubbish, that is heaped round this new human plant, by Noltenius and Company, among others. A wonder only that they did not extinguish all Sense of the Highest in the poor young soul, and leave only a Sense of the Dreariest and Stupidest. But a healthy human soul can stand a great deal. The healthy soul shakes off, in an unexpectedly victorious manner, immense masses of dry rubbish that have been shot upon it by its assiduous pedagogues and professors. What would become of any of us otherwise! Duhan, opening the young soul, by such modest gift as Duhan had, to recognize black from white a little, in this embroiled high Universe, is probably an exception in some small measure. But, Duhan excepted, it may be said to have been in spite of most of his teachers, and their diligent endeavors, that Friedrich did acquire some human piety; kept the sense of truth alive in his mind; knew, in whatever words he phrased it, the divine eternal nature of Duty; and managed, in the muddiest element and most eclipsed Age ever known, to steer by the heavenly loadstars and (so we must candidly term it) to FOLLOW God's Law; in some measure, with or without Noltenius for company. Noltenius's CATECHISM, or ghostly Drill-manual for Fritz, at least the Catechism he had plied Wilhelmina with, which no doubt was the same, is still extant. [Preuss, i. 15;—specimens of it in Rodenbeck.] A very abstruse Piece; orthodox Lutheran-Calvinist, all proved from Scripture; giving what account it can of this unfathomable Universe, to the young mind. To modern Prussians it by no means shines as the indubitablest Theory of the Universe. Indignant modern Prussians produce excerpts from it, of an abstruse nature; and endeavor to deduce therefrom some of Friedrich's aberrations in matters of religion, which became notorious enough by and by. Alas, I fear, it would not have been easy, even for the modern Prussian, to produce a perfect Catechism for the use of Friedrich; this Universe still continues a little abstruse!

And there is another deeper thing to be remarked: the notion of "teaching" religion, in the way of drill-exercise; which is a very strange notion, though a common one, and not peculiar to Noltenius and Friedrich Wilhelm. Piety to God, the nobleness that inspires a human soul to struggle Heavenward, cannot be "taught" by the most exquisite catechisms, or the most industrious preachings and drillings. No; alas, no. Only by far other methods,—chiefly by silent continual Example, silently waiting for the favorable mood and moment, and aided then by a kind of miracle, well enough named "the grace of God,"—can that sacred contagion pass from soul into soul. How much beyond whole Libraries of orthodox Theology is, sometimes, the mute action, the unconscious look of a father, of a mother, who HAD in them "Devoutness, pious Nobleness"! In whom the young soul, not unobservant, though not consciously observing, came at length to recognize it; to read it, in this irrefragable manner: a seed planted thenceforth in the centre of his holiest affections forevermore!

Noltenius wore black serge; kept the corners of his mouth well down; and had written a Catechism of repute; but I know not that Noltenius carried much seed of living piety about with him; much affection from, or for, young Fritz he could not well carry. On the whole, it is a bad outlook on the religious side; and except in Apprenticeship to the rugged and as yet repulsive Honesties of Friedrich Wilhelm, I see no good element in it. Bayle-Calvin, with Noltenius and Catechisms of repute: there is no "religion" to be had for a little Fritz out of all that. Endless Doubt will be provided for him out of all that, probably disbelief of all that;—and, on the whole, if any form at all, a very scraggy form of moral existence; from which the Highest shall be hopelessly absent; and in which anything High, anything not Low and Lying, will have double merit.

It is indeed amazing what quantities and kinds of extinct ideas apply for belief, sometimes in a menacing manner, to the poor mind of man, and poor mind of child, in these days. They come bullying in upon him, in masses, as if they were quite living ideas; ideas of a dreadfully indispensable nature, the evident counterpart, and salutary interpretation, of Facts round him, which, it is promised the poor young creature, he SHALL recognize to correspond with them, one day. At which "correspondence," when the Facts are once well recognized, he has at last to ask himself with amazement, "Did I ever recognize it, then?" Whereby come results incalculable; not good results any of them;—some of them unspeakably bad! The ease of Crown-Prince Friedrich in Berlin is not singular; all cities and places can still show the like. And when it will end, is not yet clear. But that it ever should have begun, will one day be the astonishment. As if the divinest function of a human being were not even that of believing; of discriminating, with his God-given intellect, what is from what is not; and as if the point were, to render that either an impossible function, or else what we must sorrowfully call a revolutionary, rebellious and mutinous one. O Noltenius, O Panzendorf, do for pity's sake take away your Catechetical ware; and say either nothing to the poor young Boy, or some small thing he will find to be BEYOND doubt when he can judge of it! Fever, pestilence, are bad for the body; but Doubt, impious mutiny, doubly impious hypocrisy, are these nothing for the mind? Who would go about inculcating Doubt, unless he were far astray indeed, and much at a loss for employment!

But the sorest fact in Friedrich's schooling, the forest, for the present, though it ultimately proved perhaps the most beneficent one, being well dealt with by the young soul, and nobly subdued to his higher uses, remains still to be set forth. Which will be a long business, first and last!

Chapter XII. — CROWN-PRINCE FALLS INTO DISFAVOR WITH PAPA

Those vivacities of young Fritz, his taste for music, finery, those furtive excursions into the domain of Latin and forbidden things, were distasteful and incomprehensible to Friedrich Wilhelm: Where can such things end? They begin in disobedience and intolerable perversity; they will be the ruin of Prussia and of Fritz!—Here, in fact, has a great sorrow risen. We perceive the first small cracks of incurable divisions in the royal household; the breaking out of fountains of bitterness, which by and by spread wide enough. A young sprightly, capricions and vivacious Boy, inclined to self-will, had it been permitted; developing himself into foreign tastes, into French airs and ways; very ill seen by the heavy-footed practical Germanic Majesty.

The beginnings of this sad discrepancy are traceable from Friedrich's sixth or seventh year: "Not so dirty, Boy!" And there could be no lack of growth in the mutual ill-humor, while the Boy himself continued growing; enlarging in bulk and in activity of his own. Plenty of new children come, to divide our regard withal, and more are coming; five new Princesses, wise little Ulrique the youngest of them (named of Sweden and the happy Swedish Treaty), whom we love much for her grave staid ways. Nay, next after Ulrique comes even a new Prince; August Wilhelm, ten years younger than Friedrich; and is growing up much more according to the paternal heart. Pretty children, all of them, more or less; and towardly, and comfortable to a Father;—and the worst of them a paragon of beauty, in comparison to perverse, clandestine, disobedient Fritz, with his French fopperies, flutings, and cockatoo fashions of hair!—

And so the silent divulsion, silent on Fritz's part, exploding loud enough now and then on his Father's part, goes steadily on, splitting ever wider; new offences ever superadding themselves. Till, at last, the rugged Father has grown to hate the son; and longs, with sorrowful indignation, that it were possible to make August Wilhelm Crown-Prince in his stead. This Fritz ought to fashion himself according to his Father's pattern, a well-meant honest pattern; and he does not! Alas, your Majesty, it cannot be. It is the new generation come; which cannot live quite as the old one did. A perennial controversy in human life; coeval with the genealogies of men. This little Boy should have been the excellent paternal Majesty's exact counterpart; resembling him at all points, "as a little sixpence does a big half-crown:" but we perceive he cannot. This is a new coin, with a stamp of its own. A surprising FRIEDRICH D'OR this; and may prove a good piece yet; but will never be the half-crown your Majesty requires!—

Conceive a rugged thick-sided Squire Western, of supreme degree,—or this Squire Western is a hot Hohenzollern, and wears a crown royal;—conceive such a burly NE-PLUS-ULTRA of a Squire, with his broad-based rectitudes and surly irrefragabilities; the honest German instincts of the man, convictions certain as the Fates, but capable of no utterance, or next to none, in words; and that he produces a Son who takes into Voltairism, piping, fiddling and belles-lettres, with apparently a total contempt for Grumkow and the giant-regiment! Sulphurous rage, in gusts or in lasting tempests, rising from a fund of just implacability, is inevitable. Such as we shall see.

The Mother, as mothers will, secretly favors Fritz; anxious to screen him in the day of high-wind. Withal she has plans of her own in regard to Fritz, and the others; being a lady of many plans. That of the "Double-Marriage," for example; of marrying her Prince and Princess to a Princess and Prince of the English-Hanoverian House; it was a pleasant eligible plan, consented to by Papa and the other parties; but when it came to be perfected by treaty, amid the rubs of external and internal politics, what new amazing discrepancies rose upon her poor children and her! Fearfully aggravating the quarrel of Father and Son, almost to the fatal point. Of that "Double-Marriage," whirled up in a universe of intriguing diplomacies, in the "skirts of the Kaiser's huge Spectre-Hunt," as we have called it, there will be sad things to say by and by.

Plans her Majesty has; and silently a will of her own. She loves all her children, especially Fritz, and would so love that they loved her.—For the rest, all along, Fritz and Wilhelmina are sure allies. We perceive they have fallen into a kind of cipher-speech; [Memoires de Bareith, i. 168.] they communicate with one another by telegraphic signs. One of their words, "RAGOTIN (Stumpy)," whom does the reader think it designates? Papa himself, the Royal Majesty of Prussia, Friedrich Wilhelm I., he to his rebellious children is tyrant "Stumpy," and no better; being indeed short of stature, and growing ever thicker, and surlier in these provocations!—

Such incurable discrepancies have risen in the Berlin Palace: fountains of bitterness flowing ever wider, till they made life all bitter for Son and for Father; necessitating the proud Son to hypocrisies towards his terrible Father, which were very foreign to the proud youth, had there been any other resource. But there was none, now or afterwards. Even when the young man, driven to reflection and insight by intolerable miseries, had begun to recognize the worth of his surly Rhadamanthine Father, and the intrinsic wisdom of much that he had meant with him, the Father hardly ever could, or could only by fits, completely recognize the Son's worth. Rugged suspicious Papa requires always to be humored, cajoled, even when our feeling towards him is genuine and loyal. Friedrich, to the last, we can perceive, has to assume masquerade in addressing him, in writing to him,—and in spite of real love, must have felt it a relief when such a thing was over. That is, all along, a sad element of Friedrich's education! Out of which there might have come incalculable damage to the young man, had his natural assimilative powers, to extract benefit from all things, been less considerable. As it was, he gained self-help from it; gained reticence, the power to keep his own counsel; and did not let the hypocrisy take hold of him, or be other than a hateful compulsory masquerade. At an uncommonly early age, he stands before us accomplished in endurance, for one thing; a very bright young Stoic of his sort; silently prepared for the injustices of men and things. And as for the masquerade, let us hope it was essentially foreign even to the skin of the man! The reader will judge as he goes on. "Je n'ai jamais trompe personne durant ma vie, I have never deceived anybody during my life; still less will I deceive posterity," [ Memoires depuis la Paix de Huberrtsbourg, 1763-1774 (Avant-Propos), OEUVRES, vii. 8.] writes Friedrich when his head was now grown very gray.

Chapter XIII. — RESULTS OF THE CROWN-PRINCE'S SCHOOLING

Neither as to intellectual culture, in Duhan's special sphere, and with all Duhan's good-will, was the opportunity extremely golden. It cannot be said that Friedrich, who spells in the way we saw, "ASTEURE" for "A CETTE HEURE," has made shining acquisitions on the literary side. However, in the long-run it becomes clear, his intellect, roving on devious courses, or plodding along the prescribed tram-roads, had been wide awake; and busy all the while, bringing in abundant pabulum of an irregular nature.

He did learn "Arithmetic," "Geography," and the other useful knowledges that were indispensable to him. He knows History extensively; though rather the Roman, French, and general European as the French have taught it him, than that of "Hessen, Brunswick, England," or even the "Electoral and Royal House of Brandenburg," which Papa had recommended. He read History, where he could find it readable, to the end of his life; and had early begun reading it,—immensely eager to learn, in his little head, what strange things had been, and were, in this strange Planet he was come into.