5th-19th Jan. 1762. ten or twenty miles long (or broad rather, from his right hand to his left), sudden as lightning, upon the supine Serbelloni and his Austrians and Reichsfolk. And hurled them back, one and all, almost to the Plauen Chasm and their old haunts; widening his quarters notably." A really brilliant thing, testifies everybody, though not to be dwelt on here. Seidlitz was of it (much fine cutting and careering, from the Seidlitz and others, we have to omit in these two Saxon Campaigns!)-Seidlitz was of it; he, and another still more special acquaintance of ours, the learned Quintus Icilius; who also did his best in it, but lost his 'Amusette' (small bit of cannon, 'Plaything,' so called by Maréchal de Saxe, inventor of the article), and did not shine like Seidlitz. Henri's quarters being notably widened in this way, and nothing but torpid Serbellonis and Prince Stollbergs on the opposite part, Henri 'drew himself out thirty-five miles long;' and stood there, almost looking into Plauen region as formerly. And with his fiery Seidlitzes, Kleists, made a handsome Summer of it. And beat the Austrians and Reichsfolk at Freyberg (October 29th, a fine Battle, and his sole one),-on the Horse which afterwards carried Gellert, as is pleasantly known. But we are omitting the news from Petersburg,― which came the very day after that gloomy Letter to D'Argens; months before the Tiff of Quarrel with Henri, and the brilliant better destinies of that Gentleman in his Campaign. Bright News from Petersburg (certain, January 19th); which grow ever brighter; and become a Star-of-day for Friedrich. To Friedrich, long before all this of Henri, indeed almost on the very day while he was writing so despondently to D'Argens, a new phasis had arisen. Hardly "Bericht von dem Uebergang über die Mulde, den der Prinz Heinrich den 12ten May 1762 glucklich ausgeführt (in Seyfarth, Beylagen, iii. 280 5th-19th Jan. 1762. had he been five weeks at Breslau, in those gloomy circumstances, when, -about the middle of January 1762 (day not given, though it is forever notable),— there arrive rumours, arrive news,-news from Petersburg; such as this King never had before! "Among the thousand ill strokes of Fortune, does there at length come one preeminently good? The unspeakable Sovereign Woman, is she verily dead, then, and become peaceable to me for evermore?" We promised Friedrich a wonderful star-of-day; and this is it, though it is long before he dare quite regard it as such. Peter, the Successor, he knows to be secretly his friend and admirer; if only, in the new Czarish capacity and its chaotic environments and conditions, Peter dare and can assert these feelings? What a hope to Friedrich, from this time onward! Russia may be counted as the bigger half of all he had to strive with; the bigger, or at least the far uglier, more ruinous and incendiary ;and if this were at once taken away, think what a daybreak when the night was at the blackest! Pious people say, The darkest hour is often nearest the dawn. And a dawn this proved to be for Friedrich. And the fact grew always the longer the brighter;— and before Campaign time, had ripened into real daylight and sunrise. The dates should have been precise; but are not to be had so: here is the nearest we could come. January 14th, writing to Henri, the King has a mysterious word about "possibilities of an uncommon sort,"-rumours from Petersburg, I could conjecture; though perhaps they are only Turk or Tartar-Khan affairs, which are higher this year than ever, and as futile as ever. But, on January 19th, he has heard plainly,—with what hopes (if one durst indulge them)! -that the implacable Imperial Woman, infâme Catin 5th-19th Jan. 1762. du Nord, is verily dead. Dead; and does not hate me any more. Deliverance, Peace and Victory lie in the word! Catin had long been failing, but they kept it religiously secret within the Court walls: even at Petersburg, nobody knew till the Prayers of the Church were required: Prayers as zealous as you can,—the Doctors having plainly intimated that she is desperate, and that the thing is over. On Christmas-day 1761 by Russian Style, 5th January 1762 by European, the poor Imperial Catin lay dead;-a death still more important than that of George II. to this King. Peter III., who succeeded, has long been privately a sworn friend and admirer of the King; and hastens, not too slowly as the King had feared, but far the reverse, to make that known to all mankind. That, and much else,-in a far too headlong manner, poor soul! Like an ardent, violent, totally inexperienced person (enfranchised schoolboy, come to the age of thirtyfour), who has sat hitherto in darkness, in intolerable compression; as if buried alive! He is now Czar Peter, Autocrat, not of Himself only, but of All the Russias; and has, besides the complete regeneration of Russia, two great thoughts: First, That of avenging native Holstein, and his poor martyr of a Father now with God, against the Danes;-and, Second, what is scarcely second in importance to the first, and indeed is practically a kind of preliminary to it, That of delivering the Prussian Pattern of Heroes from such a pattern of foul combinations, and bringing Peace to Europe, while he settles the HolsteinDanish business. Peter is Russian by the Mother's side; his Mother was Sister of the late Catin, a Daughter, like her, of Czar Peter called the Great, and of the little brown Catharine whom we saw transiently long ago. Jan.-July 1762. His Holstein Business shall concern us little; but that with Friedrich, during the brief Six Months allowed him for it,-for it, and for all his remaining businesses in this world,-is of the highest importance to Friedrich and us. Peter is one of the wildest men; his fate, which was tragical, is now to most readers rather of a ghastlygrotesque than of a lamentable and pitiable character. Few know, or have ever considered, in how wild an element poor Peter was born and nursed; what a time. he has had, since his fifteenth year especially, when Cousin of Zerbst and he were married. Perhaps the wildest and maddest any human soul had, during that Century. I find in him, starting out from the Lethean quagmires where he had to grow, a certain rash greatness of idea; traces of veritable conviction, just resolution; veritable and just, though rash. That of admiration for King Friedrich was not intrinsically foolish, in the solitary thoughts of the poor young fellow; nay it was the reverse; though it was highly inopportune in the place where he stood. Nor was the Holstein notion bad; it was generous rather, noble and natural, though, again, somewhat impracticable in the circumstances. The summary of the Friedrich-Peter business is perhaps already known to most readers, and can be very briefly given; nor is Peter's tragical Six Months of Czarship (5th January-9th July 1762) a thing for us to dwell on beyond need. But it is wildly tragical, strokes of deep pathos in it, blended with the ghastly and grotesque: it is part of Friedrich's strange element and environment: and though the outer incidents are public enough, it is essentially little known. Had there been an Eschylus, had there been a Shakespeare! Jan.-July 1762. But poor Peter's shocking Six Months of History has been treated by a far different set of hands, themselves almost shocking to see: and, to the seriously inquiring mind, it lies, and will long lie, in a very waste, chaotic, enigmatic condition. Here, out of considerable bundles now burnt, are some rough jottings, Excerpts of Notes and Studies, which, I still doubt rather, ought to have gone in Auto de Fe along with the others. Auto de Fe I called it; Act of Faith, not Spanish-Inquisitional, but essentially Celestial many times, if you reflect well on the poisonous consequences, on the sinfulness and deadly criminality, of Human Babble,-as nobody does nowadays! I label the different Pieces, and try to make legible;-hasty readers have the privilege of skipping, if they like. The first Two are of preliminary or prefatory nature, perhaps still more skippable than those that will by and by follow: 1. Genealogy of Peter. His grandfather was Friedrich IV., 'Duke of Holstein-Gottorp and Schleswig, Karl XII.'s brother'in-law; on whose score it was (Denmark finding the time opportune for a stroke of robbery there) that Karl XII., a young lad hardly eighteen, first took arms; and began the career of fighting that astonished Denmark and certain other "Neighbours who had been too covetous on a young King. This "his young Brother-in-law, Friedrich of Holstein-Gottorp (young 'he too, though Karl's senior by ten years), had been reinstated in his Territory, and the Danes sternly forbidden farther bur'glary there, by the victorious Karl; but went with Karl in his 'farther expeditions. Always Karl's intimate, and at his right hand for the next two years: fell in the Battle of Clissow, 19th July 1702; age not yet thirty-one. 28 'He left as Heir a poor young Boy, at this time only two "years old. His young Widow Hedwig survived him six years." • Her poor child grew to manhood; and had tragic fortunes in 28 Michaelis, ii. 618-629. |