April-Oct. 1777. graciously pleased to step up to D'Alembert, who is Perpetual Secretary here; and this little Dialogue ensued: Falkenstein. "I have heard you are for Germany this season; some say you intend to become German altogether?" D'Alembert. "I did promise myself the high honour of a visit to "his Prussian Majesty, who has deigned to invite me, with all "the kindness possible: but, alas for such hopes! the bad state "of my health-" Falkenstein. "It seems to me you have al"ready been to see the King of Prussia?" 'D'Alembert. "Two "times; once in 1756" (1755, 17th-19th June, if you will be exact), “at Wesel, when I remained only a few days; and again " in 1763, when I had the honour to pass three or four months "with him. Since that time I have always longed to have the "honour of seeing his Majesty again; but circumstances hin"dered me. I, above all, regretted not to have been able to pay "my court to him that year he saw the Emperor at Neisse,—but "at this moment there is nothing more to be wished on that head" (Don't bow: the Gentleman is Incognito). Falkenstein. "It 66 was very natural that the Emperor, young, and desiring to in"struct himself, should wish to see such a Prince as the King of "Prussia; so great a Captain, a Monarch of such reputation, " and who has played so great a part. It was a Scholar going 66 to see his Master" (these are his very words, your Majesty). D'Alembert. "I wish M. le Comte de Falkenstein could see the "Letters which the King of Prussia did me the honour to write "after that Interview: it would then appear how this Prince 66 judged of the Emperor, as all the world has since done."75 * King to D'Alembert (three months after. Kaiser is home; passed Ferney, early in August; and did not call on Voltaire, as is well known). "I hear the Comte de Falken“stein has been seeing harbours, arsenals, ships, manufactures, "and hasn't seen Voltaire. Had I been in the Emperor's "place, I would not have passed Ferney without a glance at the "old Patriarch, were it only to say that I had seen and heard "him. Arsenals, ships, manufactures, these you can see any"where; but it requires ages to produce a Voltaire. By the ❝rumours I hear, it will have been a certain great Lady Theresa, 75 'D'Alembert to Friedrich' (in Œuvres de Frédéric, xxv. 75), ‘23d May 1777. Ibid. xxv. 82; '13th August 1777.' April-Oct. 1777. 66 very Orthodox and little Philosophical, who forbade her Son to "visit the Apostle of Tolerance." D'Alembert (in answer): "No doubt your Majesty's guess is right. It must have been "the Lady Mother. Nobody here believes that the advice came "from his Sister" (Queen Marie Antoinette), "who, they say, " is full of esteem for the Patriarch, and has more than once let "him know it by third parties."76 According to Friedrich, Joseph's reflections in France were very gloomy: "This is all one Country; strenuously kneaded into perfect union and incorporation by the Old Kings: my discordant Romish Reich is of many Countries,―and should be of one, if Sovereigns were wise and strenuous !"77____ 2. A Cabinet-Order and actual (facsimile) Signature of Friedrich's. After unknown travels over the world, this poor brown Bit of Paper, with a Signature of Friedrich's to it, has wandered hither; and I have had it copied, worthy or not. A Royal Cabinet-Order on the smallest of subjects; but perhaps all the more significant on that account; and a Signature which readers may like to see. - Fordan, or Fordon, is in the Bromberg Department in WestPreussen, Bromberg no longer a heap of ruins; but a lively, new-built, paved, canalled, and industrious trading Town. At Fordan is a Grain-Magazine: Bein ("Leg," der Bein, as they slightingly call him) is Proviant-Master there; and must consider his ways, the King's eye being on him. Readers can now look and understand: "An den Ober-Proviantmeister Bein, zu Fordan. Original kindly furnished me by Mr. W. H. Doeg, Barlow Moor, Manchester; whose it now is,-purchased in London, A.D. 1863. The Frh of German cursiv-schrift (current hand), which the woodcutter has appended, shut off by a square, will show English readers what the King means: an "Frh" done as by a flourish of one's stick, in the most compendious and really ingenious manner,-suitable for an economic King, who has to repeat it scores of times every day of his life! CHAPTER VI. THE BAVARIAN WAR. Ar the very beginning of 1778, the chronic quarrel with Austria passed, by an accident just fallen out, into the acute state; rose gradually, and, in spite of negotiating, issued in a thing called Bavarian-Succession War, which did not end till Spring of the following year. The accident was this. At München, December 30th, 1777, Max Joseph Kurfürst of Baiern, only Brother of our lively friend the Electress-Dowager of Saxony, died; suddenly, of small-pox unskilfully treated. He was in his fifty-second year; childless, the last of that Bavarian branch. His Heir is Karl Theodor, Kur-Pfalz (Elector Palatine), who is now to unite the Two Electorates, unless Austria can bargain with him otherwise. Austria's desire to get hold of Baiern is of very old standing; and we have heard lately how much it was an object with Kaunitz and his young Kaiser. With Karl Theodor they did bargain,-in fact, had beforehand as good as bargained, and were greatly astonished, when King Friedrich, alone of all Teutschland or the world, mildly, but peremptorily, interfered, and said No,-with effect, as is well known. Something, not much, must be said of this Bavarian Succession War; which occupied, at a pitch of tension and anxiety foreign to him for a long time, fifteen months of Friedrich's old age (January 1778—March 30th Dec. 1777. 1779); and filled all Europe round him and it, in an extraordinary manner. Something; by no means much, now that we have seen the issue of such mountains all in travail. Nobody could then say but it bade fair to become a Fourth Austrian-Prussian War, as sanguinary as the Seven-Years had been; for in effect there stood once more the Two Nations ranked against each other, as if for mortal duel, near half a million men in whole; parleying indeed, but brandishing their swords, and ever and anon giving mutual clash of fence, as if the work had begun, though there always intervened new parleying first. And now everybody sees that the work never did begin; that parleying, enforced by brandishing, turned out to be all the work there was: and everybody has forgotten it, and, except for specific purposes, demands not to be put in mind of it. Mountains in labour were not so frequent then as now, when the Penny Newspaper has got charge of them; though then as now to practical people they were a nuisance. Mountains all in terrific travail-throes, threatening to overset the solar system, have always a charm, especially for the more foolish classes: but when once the birth has taken place, and the wretched mouse ducks past you, or even nothing at all can be seen to duck past, who is there but impatiently turns on his heel? Those Territories, which adjoin on its own dominions, would have been extremely commodious to Austria;-as Austria itself has long known; and by repeatedly attempting them on any chance given (as in 1741-45, to go no farther back), has shown how well it knows. Indeed, the whole of Bavaria fairly incorporated and made Austrian, what an infinite convenience would it be! |