Chapter IV. — HIS MAJESTY'S WAYS
Friedrich Wilhelm's History is one of ECONOMICS; which study, so soon as there are Kings again in this world, will be precious to them. In that happy state of matters, Friedrich Wilhelm's History will well reward study; and teach by example, in a very simple and direct manner. In what is called the Political, Diplomatic, "Honor-to-be" department, there is not, nor can ever be, much to be said of him; this Economist King having always kept himself well at home, and looked steadily to his own affairs. So that for the present he has, as a King, next to nothing of what is called History; and it is only as a fellow-man, of singular faculty, and in a most peculiar and conspicuous situation, that he can be interesting to mankind. To us he has, as Father and daily teacher and master of young Fritz, a continual interest; and we must note the master's ways, and the main phenomena of the workshop as they successively turned up, for the sake of the notable Apprentice serving there.
He was not tall of stature, this arbitrary King: a florid-complexioned stout-built man; of serious, sincere, authoritative face; his attitudes and equipments very Spartan in type. Man of short firm stature; stands (in Pesne's best Portraits of him) at his ease, and yet like a tower. Most solid; "plumb and rather more;" eyes steadfastly awake; cheeks slightly compressed, too, which fling the mouth rather forward; as if asking silently, "Anything astir, then? All right here?" Face, figure and bearing, all in him is expressive of robust insight, and direct determination; of healthy energy, practicality, unquestioned authority,—a certain air of royalty reduced to its simplest form. The face in Pictures by Pesne and others, is not beautiful or agreeable; healthy, genuine, authoritative, is the best you can say of it. Yet it may have been, what it is described as being, originally handsome. High enough arched brow, rather copious cheeks and jaws; nose smallish, inclining to be stumpy; large gray eyes, bright with steady fire and life, often enough gloomy and severe, but capable of jolly laughter too. Eyes "naturally with a kind of laugh in them," says Pollnitz;—which laugh can blaze out into fearful thunderous rage, if you give him provocation. Especially if you lie to him; for that he hates above all things. Look him straight in the face: he fancies he can see in your eyes, if there is an internal mendacity in you: wherefore you must look at him in speaking; such is his standing order.
His hair is flaxen, falling into the ash-gray or darker; fine copious flowing hair, while he wore it natural. But it soon got tied into clubs, in the military style; and at length it was altogether cropped away, and replaced by brown, and at last by white, round wigs. Which latter also, though bad wigs, became him not amiss, under his cocked-hat and cockade, says Pollnitz. [Pollnitz, Memoiren (Berlin, 1791), ii. 568.] The voice, I guess, even when not loud, was of clangorous and penetrating, quasi-metallic nature; and I learn expressly once, that it had a nasal quality in it. [Busching, Beitrage, i. 568.] His Majesty spoke through the nose; snuffled his speech in an earnest ominously plangent manner. In angry moments, which were frequent, it must have been—unpleasant to listen to. For the rest, a handsome man of his inches; conspicuously well-built in limbs and body, and delicately finished off to the very extremities. His feet and legs, says Pollnitz, were very fine. The hands, if he would have taken care of them, were beautifully white; fingers long and thin; a hand at once nimble to grasp, delicate to feel, and strong to clutch and hold: what may be called a beautiful hand, because it is the usefulest.
Nothing could exceed his Majesty's simplicity of habitudes. But one loves especially in him his scrupulous attention to cleanliness of person and of environment. He washed like a very Mussulman, five times a day; loved cleanliness in all things, to a superstitious extent; which trait is pleasant in the rugged man, and indeed of a piece with the rest of his character. He is gradually changing all his silk and other cloth room-furniture; in his hatred of dust, he will not suffer a floor-carpet, even a stuffed chair; but insists on having all of wood, where the dust may be prosecuted to destruction. [Forster, i. 208.] Wife and womankind, and those that take after them, let such have stuffing and sofas: he, for his part, sits on mere wooden chairs;—sits, and also thinks and acts, after the manner of a Hyperborean Spartan, which he was. He ate heartily, but as a rough farmer and hunter eats; country messes, good roast and boiled; despising the French Cook, as an entity without meaning for him. His favorite dish at dinner was bacon and greens, rightly dressed; what could the French Cook do for such a man? He ate with rapidity, almost with indiscriminate violence: his object not quality but quantity. He drank too, but did not get drunk: at the Doctor's order he could abstain; and had in later years abstained. Pollnitz praises his fineness of complexion, the originally eminent whiteness of his skin, which he had tanned and bronzed by hard riding and hunting, and otherwise worse discolored by his manner of feeding and digesting: alas, at last his waistcoat came to measure, I am afraid to say how many Prussian ells,—a very considerable diameter indeed! [Ib. i. 163.]
For some years after his accession he still appeared occasionally in "burgher dress," or unmilitary clothes; "brown English coat, yellow waistcoat" and the other indispensables. But this fashion became rarer with him every year; and ceased altogether (say Chronologists) about the year 1719: after which he appeared always simply as Colonel of the Potsdam Guards (his own Lifeguard Regiment) in simple Prussian uniform: close military coat; blue, with red cuffs and collar, buff waistcoat and breeches; white linen gaiters to the knee. He girt his sword about the loins, well out of the mud; walked always with a thick bamboo in his hand; Steady, not slow of step; with his triangular hat, cream-white round wig (in his older days), and face tending to purple,—the eyes looking out mere investigation, sharp swift authority, and dangerous readiness to rebuke and set the cane in motion:—it was so he walked abroad in this earth; and the common run of men rather fled his approach than courted it.
For, in fact, he was dangerous; and would ask in an alarming manner, "Who are you?" Any fantastic, much more any suspicious-looking person, might fare the worse. An idle lounger at the street-corner he has been known to hit over the crown; and peremptorily despatch: "Home, Sirrah, and take to some work!" That the Apple-women be encouraged to knit, while waiting for custom;—encouraged and quietly constrained, and at length packed away, and their stalls taken from them, if unconstrainable,—there has, as we observed, an especial rescript been put forth; very curious to read. [In Rodenbeck, Beitrage, p. 15.]
Dandiacal figures, nay people looking like Frenchmen, idle flaunting women even,—better for them to be going. "Who are you?" and if you lied or prevaricated ("Er blicke mich gerade an, Look me in the face, then!"), or even stumbled, hesitated, and gave suspicion of prevaricating, it might be worse for you. A soft answer is less effectual than a prompt clear one, to turn away wrath. "A Candidatus Theoligiae, your Majesty," answered a handfast threadbare youth one day, when questioned in this manner.—"Where from?" "Berlin, your Majesty."—"Hm, na, the Berliners are a good-for-nothing set." "Yes, truly, too many of them; but there are exceptions; I know two."—"Two? which then?" "Your Majesty and myself!"—Majesty burst into a laugh: the Candidatus was got examined by the Consistoriums, and Authorities proper in that matter, and put into a chaplaincy.
This King did not love the French, or their fashions, at all. We said he dismissed the big Peruke,—put it on for the last time at his Father's funeral, so far did filial piety go; and then packed it aside, dismissing it, nay banishing and proscribing it, never to appear more. The Peruke, and, as it were, all that the Peruke symbolized. For this was a King come into the world with quite other aims than that of wearing big perukes, and, regardless of expense, playing burst-frog to the ox of Versailles, which latter is itself perhaps a rather useless animal. Of Friedrich Wilhelm's taxes upon wigs; of the old "Wig-inspectors," and the feats they did, plucking off men's periwigs on the street, to see if the government-stamp were there, and to discourage wiggery, at least all but the simple scratch or useful Welsh-wig, among mankind: of these, and of other similar things, I could speak; but do not. This little incident, which occurred once in the review-ground on the outskirts of Berlin, will suffice to mark his temper in that respect. It was in the spring of 1719; our little Fritz then six years old, who of course heard much temporary confused commentary, direct and oblique, triumphant male laughter, and perhaps rebellious female sighs, on occasion of such a feat.
Count Rothenburg, Prussian by birth, [Buchholz, Neueste Preuwssisch-Brandenburgische Geschichte, i. 28.] an accomplished and able person in the diplomatic and other lines of business, but much used to Paris and its ways, had appeared lately in Berlin, as French envoy,—and, not unnaturally, in high French costume; cocked-hat, peruke, laced coat, and the other trimmings. He, and a group of dashing followers and adherents, were accustomed to go about in that guise; very capable of proving infectious to mankind. What is to be done with them? thinks the anxious Father of his People. They were to appear at the ensuing grand Review, as Friedrich Wilhelm understood. Whereupon Friedrich Wilhelm took his measures in private. Dressed up, namely, his Scavenger-Executioner people (what they call PROFOSSEN in Prussian regiments) in an enormous exaggeration of that costume; cocked-hats about an ell in diameter, wigs reaching to the houghs, with other fittings to match: these, when Count Rothenburg and his company appeared upon the ground, Friedrich Wilhelm summoned out, with some trumpet-peal or burst of field-music; and they solemnly crossed Count Rothenburg's field of vision; the strangest set of, Phantasms he had seen lately. Awakening salutary reflections in him. [Forster, i. 165; Faasmann, Leben und Thaten des allerdurchlauchtigsten gc. Konigs von Preussen Frederici Wilhelmi (Hambug und Breslau, 1735), pp. 223, 319.] Fancy that scene in History; Friedrich Wilhelm for comic-symbolic Dramaturgist. Gods and men (or at least Houyhnhnm horses) might have saluted it; with a Homeric laugh,—so huge and vacant is it, with a suspicion of real humor too:—but the men were not permitted, on parade, more than a silent grin, or general irrepressible rustling murmur; and only the gods laughed inextinguishably, if so disposed. The Scavenger-Executioners went back to their place; and Count Rothenburg took a plain German costume, so long as he continued in those parts.
Friedrich Wilhelm has a dumb rough wit and mockery, of that kind, on many occasions; not without geniality in its Brobdignag exaggeration and simplicity. Like a wild bear of the woods taking his sport; with some sense of humor in the rough skin of him. Very capable of seeing through sumptuous costumes; and respectful of realities alone. Not in French sumptuosity, but in native German thrift, does this King see his salvation; so as Nature constructed him: and the world which has long lost its Spartans, will see again an original North-German Spartan; and shriek a good deal over him; Nature keeping her own counsel the while, and as it were, laughing in her sleeve at the shrieks of the flunky world. For Nature, when she makes a Spartan, means a good deal by it; and does not expect instant applauses, but only gradual and lasting.
"For my own part," exclaims a certain Editor once, "I perceive well there was never yet any great Empire founded, Roman, English, down to Prussian or Dutch, nor in fact any great mass of work got achieved under the Sun, but it was founded even upon this humble-looking quality of Thrift, and became achievable in virtue of the same. Which will seem a strange doctrine, in these days of gold-nuggets, railway-fortunes, and miraculous, sumptuosities regardless of expense. Earnest readers are invited to consider it, nevertheless. Though new; it is very old; and a sad meaning lies in it to us of these times! That you have squandered in idle fooleries, building where there was no basis, your Hundred Thousand Sterling, your Eight Hundred Million Sterling, is to me a comparatively small matter. You may still again become rich, if you have at last become wise. But if you have wasted your capacity of strenuous, devoutly valiant labor, of patience, perseverance, self-denial, faith in the causes of effects; alas, if your once just judgment of what is worth something and what is worth nothing, has been wasted, and your silent steadfast reliance on the general veracities, of yourself and of things, is no longer there,—then indeed you have had a loss! You are, in fact, an entirely bankrupt individual; as you will find by and by. Yes; and though you had California in fee-simple; and could buy all the upholsteries, groceries, funded-properties, temporary (very temporary) landed properties of the world, at one swoop, it would avail you nothing. Henceforth for you no harvests in the Seedfield of this Universe, which reserves its salutary bounties, and noble heaven-sent gifts, for quite other than you; and I would not give a pin's value for all YOU will ever reap there. Mere imaginary harvests, sacks of nuggets and the like; empty as the east-wind;—with all the Demons laughing at you! Do you consider that Nature too is a swollen flunky, hungry for veils; and can be taken in with your sublime airs of sumptuosity, and the large balance you actually have in Lombard Street? Go to the—General Cesspool, with your nuggets and your ducats!"
The flunky world, much stript of its plush and fat perquisites, accuses Friedrich Wilhelm bitterly of avarice and the cognate vices. But it is not so; intrinsically, in the main, his procedure is to be defined as honorable thrift,—verging towards avarice here and there; as poor human virtues usually lean to one side or the other! He can be magnificent enough too, and grudges no expense, when the occasion seems worthy. If the occasion is inevitable, and yet not quite worthy, I have known him have recourse to strange shifts. The Czar Peter, for example, used to be rather often in the Prussian Dominions, oftenest on business of his own: such a man is to be royally defrayed while with us; yet one would wish it done cheap. Posthorses, "two hundred and eighty-seven at every station," he has from the Community; but the rest of his expenses, from Memel all the way to Wesel? Friedrich Wilhelm's marginal response to his FINANZ-DIRECTORIUM, requiring orders once on that subject, runs in the following strange tenor: "Yes, all the way (except Berlin, which I take upon myself); and observe, you contrive to do it for 6,000 thalers (900 pounds),—which is uncommonly cheap, about 1 pound per mile;—won't allow you one other penny (nit einen Pfennig gebe mehr dazu); but you are (sollen Sie)," this is the remarkable point, "to give out in the world that it costs me from Thirty to Forty Thousand!" [1717: Forster, i. 213.] So that here is the Majesty of Prussia, who beyond all men abhors lies, giving orders to tell one? Alas, yes; a kind of lie, or fib (white fib, or even GRAY), the pinch of Thrift compelling! But what a window into the artless inner-man of his Majesty, even that GRAY fib;—not done by oneself, but ordered to be done by the servant, as if that were cheaper!
"Verging upon avarice," sure enough: but, unless we are unjust and unkind, he can by no means be described as a MISER King. He collects what is his; gives you accurately what is yours. For wages paid he will see work done; he will ascertain more and more that the work done be work needful for him; and strike it off, if not. A Spartan man, as we said,—though probably he knew as little of the Spartans as the Spartans did of him. But Nature is still capable of such products: if in Hellas long ages since, why not in Brandenburg now?
Chapter V. — FRIEDRICH WILHELM'S ONE WAR
One of Fritz's earliest strong impressions from the outer world chanced to be of War,—so it chanced, though he had shown too little taste that way, and could not, as yet, understand such phenomena;—and there must have been much semi-articulate questioning and dialoguing with Dame de Roucoulles, on his part, about the matter now going on.
In the year 1715, little Fritz's third year, came grand doings, not of drill only, but of actual war and fighting: the "Stralsund Expedition," Friedrich Wilhelm's one feat in that kind. Huge rumor of which fills naturally the maternal heart, the Berlin Palace drawing-rooms; and occupies, with new vivid interests, all imaginations young and old. For the actual battledrums are now beating, the big cannon-wains are creaking under way; and military men take farewell, and march, tramp, tramp; Majesty in grenadier-guard uniform at their head: horse, foot and artillery; northward to Stralsund on the Baltic shore, where a terrible human Lion has taken up his lair lately. Charles XII. of Sweden, namely; he has broken out of Turkish Bender or Demotica, and ended his obstinate torpor, at last; has ridden fourteen or sixteen days, he and a groom or two, through desolate steppes and mountain wildernesses, through crowded dangerous cities;—"came by Vienna and by Cassel, then through Pommern;" leaving his "royal train of two thousand persons" to follow at its leisure. He, for his part, has ridden without pause, forward, ever forward, in darkest incognito, the indefatigable man;—and finally, on Old-Hallowmas Eve (22d-11th November, 1714), far in the night, a Horseman, with two others still following him, travel-splashed, and "white with snow," drew bridle at the gate of Stralsund; and, to the surprise of the Swedish sentinel there, demanded instant admission to the Governor. The Governor, at first a little surly of humor, saw gradually how it was; sprang out of bed, and embraced the knees of the snowy man; Stralsund in general sprang out of bed, and illuminated itself, that same Hallow-Eve:—and in brief, Charles XII., after five years of eclipse, has reappeared upon the stage of things; and menaces the world, in his old fashion, from that City. From which it becomes urgent to many parties, and at last to Friedrich Wilhelm himself, that he be dislodged.
The root of this Stralsund story belongs to the former reign, as did the grand apparition of Charles XII. on the theatre of European History, and the terror and astonishment he created there. He is now thirty-three years old; and only the winding up, both of him and of the Stralsund story, falls within our present field. Fifteen years ago, it was like the bursting of a cataract of bomb-shells in a dull ball-room, the sudden appearance of this young fighting Swede among the luxurious Kings and Kinglets of the North, all lounging about and languidly minuetting in that manner, regardless of expense! Friedrich IV. of Denmark rejoicing over red wine; August the Strong gradually producing his "three hundred and fifty-four bastards;" [Memoires de Bareith (Wilhelmina's Book, Londres, 1812), i. 111.] these and other neighbors had confidently stept in, on various pretexts; thinking to help themselves from the young man's properties, who was still a minor; when the young minor suddenly developed himself as a major and maximus, and turned out to be such a Fire-King among them!
In consequence of which there had been no end of Northern troubles; and all through the Louis-Fourteenth or Marlborough grand "Succession War," a special "Northern War" had burnt or smouldered on its own score; Swedes VERSUS Saxons, Russians and Danes, bickering in weary intricate contest, and keeping those Northern regions in smoke if not on fire. Charles XII., for the last five years (ever since Pultawa, and the summer of 1709), had lain obstinately dormant in Turkey; urging the Turks to destroy Czar Peter. Which they absolutely could not, though they now and then tried; and Viziers not a few lost their heads in consequence. Charles lay sullenly dormant; Danes meanwhile operating upon his Holstein interests and adjoining territories; Saxons, Russians, battering continually at Swedish Pommern, continually marching thither, and then marching home again, without success,—always through the Brandenburg Territory, as they needs must. Which latter circumstance Friedrich Wilhelm, while yet only Crown-Prince, had seen with natural displeasure, could that have helped it. But Charles XII. would not yield a whit; sent orders peremptorily, from his bed at Bender or Demotica, that there must be no surrender. Neither could the sluggish enemy compel surrender.
So that, at length, it had grown a feeble wearisome welter of inextricable strifes, with worn-out combatants, exhausted of all but their animosity; and seemed as if it would never end. Inveterate ineffective war; ruinous to all good interests in those parts. What miseries had Holstein from it, which last to our own day! Mecklenburg also it involved in sore troubles, which lasted long enough, as we shall see. But Brandenburg, above all, may be impatient; Brandenburg, which has no business with it except that of unlucky neighborhood. One of Friedrich Wilhelm's very first operations, as King, was to end this ugly state of matters, which he had witnessed with impatience, as Prince, for a long while.
He had hailed even the Treaty of Utrecht with welcome, in hopes it might at least end these Northern brabbles. This the Treaty of Utrecht tried to do, but could not: however, it gave him back his Prussian Fighting Men; which he has already increased by six regiments, raised, we may perceive, on the ruins of his late court-flunkies and dismissed goldsticks;—with these Friedrich Wilhelm will try to end it himself. These he at once ordered to form a Camp on his frontier, close to that theatre of contest; and signified now with emphasis, in the beginning of 1713, that he decidedly wished there were peace in those Pommern regions. Negotiations in consequence; [10th June, 1713: Buchholz, i. 21.] very wide negotiations, Louis XIV. and the Kaiser lending hand, to pacify these fighting Northern Kings and their Czar: at length the Holstein Government, representing their sworn ally, Charles XII., on the occasion, made an offer which seemed promising. They proposed that, Stettin and its dependencies, the strong frontier Town, and, as it were, key of Swedish Pommern, should be evacuated by the Swedes, and be garrisoned by neutral troops, Prussians and Holsteiners in equal number; which neutral troops shall prohibit any hostile attack of Pommern from without, Sweden engaging not to make any attack through Pommern from within. That will be as good as peace in Pommern, till we get a general Swedish Peace. With which Friedrich Wilhelm gladly complies. [22d June, 1713: Buchholz, i. 21.]
Unhappily, however, the Swedish Commandant in Stettin would not give up the place, on any representative or secondary authority; not without an express order in his King's own hand. Which, as his King was far away, in abstruse Turkish circumstances and localities, could not be had at the moment; and involved new difficulties and uncertainties, new delay which might itself be fatal. The end was, the Russians and Saxons had to cannonade the man out by regular siege: they then gave up the Town to Prussia and Holstein; but required first to be paid their expenses incurred in sieging it,—400,000 thalers, as they computed and demonstrated, or some where about 60,000 pounds of our money.
Friedrich Wilhelm paid the money (Holstein not having a groschen); took possession of the Town, and dependent towns and forts; intending well to keep them till repaid. This was in October, 1713; and ever since, there has been actual tranquillity in those parts: the embers of the Northern War may still burn or smoulder elsewhere, but here they are quite extinct. At first, it was a joint possession of Stettin, Holsteiners and Prussians in equal number; and if Friedrich Wilhelm had been sure of his money, so it would have continued. But the Holsteiners had paid nothing; Charles XII's sanction never could be expressly got, and the Holsteiners were mere dependents of his. Better to increase our Prussian force, by degrees; and, in some good way, with a minimum of violence, get the Holsteiners squeezed out of Stettin: Friedrich Wilhelm has so ordered and contrived. The Prussian force having now gradually increased to double in this important garrison, the Holsteiners are quietly disarmed, one night, and ordered to depart, under penalties;—which was done. Holding such a pawn-ticket as Stettin, buttoned in our own pocket, we count now on being paid our 60,000 pounds before parting with it.
Matters turned out as Friedrich Wilhelm had dreaded they might. Here is Charles XII. come back; inflexible as cold Swedish iron; will not hear of any Treaty dealing with his properties in that manner: Is he a bankrupt, then, that you will sell his towns by auction? Charles does not, at heart, believe that Friedrich Wilhelm ever really paid the 60,000 pounds Charles demands, for his own part, to have, his own Swedish Town of Stettin restored to him; and has not the least intention, or indeed ability, to pay money. Vain to answer: "Stettin, for the present, is not a Swedish Town; it is a Prussian Pawn-ticket!"—There was much negotiation, correspondence; Louis XIV. and the Kaiser stepping in again to produce settlement. To no purpose. Louis, gallant old Bankrupt, tried hard to take Charles's part with effect. But he had, himself, no money now; could only try finessing by ambassadors, try a little menacing by them; neither of which profited. Friedrich Wilhelm, wanting only peace on his borders, after fifteen years of extraneous uproar there, has paid 60,000 pounds in hard cash to have it: repay him that sum, with promise of peace on his borders, he will then quit Stettin; till then not. Big words from a French Ambassador in big wig, will not suffice: "Bullying goes for nothing (Bange machen gilt nicht),"—the thing covenanted for will need to be done! Poor Louis the Great, whom we now call "BANKRUPT-Great," died while these affairs were pending; while Charles, his ally, was arguing and battling against all the world, with only a grandiloquent Ambassador to help him from Louis. "J'ai trop aime la guerre," said Louis at his death, addressing a new small Louis (five years old), his great-grandson and successor: "I have been too fond of war; do not imitate me in that, ne m'imitez pas en cela." [1st September, 1715.] Which counsel also, as we shall see, was considerably lost in air.
Friedrich Wilhelm had a true personal regard for Charles XII., a man made in many respects after his own heart; and would fain have persuaded him into softer behavior. But it was to no purpose. Charles would not listen to reasons of policy; or believe that his estate was bankrupt, or that his towns could be put in pawn. Danes, Saxons, Russians, even George I. of England (George-having just bought, of the Danish King, who had got hold of it, a great Hanover bargain, Bremen and Verden, on cheap terms, from the quasi-bankrupt estate of poor Charles),—have to combine against him, and see to put him down. Among whom Prussia, at length actually attacked by Charles in the Stettin regions, has reluctantly to take the lead in that repressive movement. On the 28th of April, 1715, Friedrich Wilhelm declares war against Charles; is already on march, with a great force, towards Stettin, to coerce and repress said Charles. No help for it, so sore as it goes against us: "Why will the very King whom I most respect compel me to be his enemy?" said Friedrich Wilhelm. [ OEuvres de Frederic (Histoire de Brandebourg), i. 132; Buchholz, i. 28.]
One of Friedrich Wilhelm's originalities is his farewell Order and Instruction, to his three chief Ministers, on this occasion. Ilgen, Dohna, Prinzen, tacit dusky figures, whom we meet in Prussian Books, and never gain the least idea of, except as of grim, rather cunning, most reserved antiquarlan gentlemen,—a kind of human iron-safes, solemnly filled (under triple and quadruple patent-locks) with what, alas, has now all grown waste-paper, dust and cobweb, to us:—these three reserved cunning Gentlemen are to keep a thrice-watchful eye on all subordinate boards and persons, and see well that nobody nod or do amiss. Brief weekly report to his Majesty will be expected; staffettes, should cases of hot haste occur: any questions of yours are "to be put on a sheet of paper folded down, to which I can write marginalia:" if nothing particular is passing, "NIT SCHREIBEN, you don't write." Pay out no money, except what falls due by the Books; none;—if an extraordinary case for payment arise, consult my Wife, and she must sign her order for it. Generally in matters of any moment, consult my Wife; but her only, "except her and the Privy Councillors, no mortal is to poke into my affairs:" I say no mortal, "SONST KEIN MENSCH."
"My Wife shall be told of all things," he says elsewhere, "and counsel asked of her." The rugged Paterfamilias, but the human one! "And as I am a man," continues he, "and may be shot dead, I command you and all to take care of Fritz (FUR FRITZ ZU SORGEN), as God shall reward you. And I give you all, Wife to begin with, my curse (MEINEN PLUCH), that God may punish you in Time and Eternity, if you do not, after my death,—do what, O Heavens?—bury me in the vault of the Schlosskirche," Palace-Church at Berlin! "And you shall make no grand to-do (KEIN FESTIN) on the occasion. On your body and life, no festivals and ceremonials, except that the regiments one after the other fire a volley over me." Is not this an ursine man-of-genius, in some sort, as we once defined him? He adds suddenly, and concludes: "I am assured you will manage everything with all the exactness in the world; for which I shall ever zealously, as long as I live, be your friend." [26th April, 1715: Cosmars und Klaproths Staatsrath,s. 223 (in Stenzel, iii. 269)]. Russians, Saxons affected to intend joining Friedrich Wilhelm in his Pommern Expedition; and of the latter there did, under a so-called Field-Marshal von Wackerbarth, of high plumes and titles, some four thousand—of whom only Colonel von Seckendorf, commanding one of the horse-regiments, is remarkable to us—come and serve. The rest, and all the Russians, he was as well pleased to have at a distance. Some sixteen thousand Danes joined him, too, with the King of Denmark at their head; very furious, all, against the Swedish-iron Hero; but they were remarked to do almost no real service, except at sea a little against the Swedish ships. George I. also had a fleet in the Baltic; but only "to protect English commerce." On the whole, the Siege of Stralsund, to which the Campaign pretty soon reduced itself, was done mainly by Friedrich Wilhelm. He stayed two months in Stettin, getting all his preliminaries completed; his good Queen, Wife "Feekin," was with him for some time, I know not whether now or afterwards. In the end of June, he issued from Stettin; took the interjacent outpost places; and then opened ground before Stralsund, where, in a few days more, the Danes joined him. It was now the middle of July: a combined Army of well-nigh forty thousand against Charles; who, to man his works, musters about the fourth part of that number. [Pauli, viii. 85-101; Buchholz, i. 31-39; Forster, ii. 34-39; Stenzel, iii. 272-218.]
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