TIFF OF QUARREL BETWEEN KING AND HENRI (March-April, 1762)
In the Spring months Prince Henri is at Hof in Voigtland, on the extreme right of his long line of "Quarters behind the Mulda;" busy enough, watching the Austrians and Reich; levying the severe contributions; speeding all he can the manifold preparatives;—conscious to himself of the greatest vigilance and diligence, but wrapt in despondency and black acidulent humors; a "Doctor SO MUCH THE WORSE," who is not a comforting Correspondent. From Hof, towards the middle of March, he becomes specially gloomy and acidulous; sends a series of Complaints; also of News, not important, but all rather in YOUR favor, my dearest Brother, than in mine, if you will please to observe! As thus:—
HENRI (at Hof, 10th-13th March).... "Sadly off here, my dearest Brother.! Of our '1,284 head of commissariat horses,' only 180 are come in; of our '287 drivers,' not one. Will be impossible to open Campaign at that rate."—"Grenadier Battalions ROTHENBURG and GRANT demand to have picked men to complete them [of CANTONIST, or sure Prussian sort].... I find [NOTA BENE, Reader!] there are eight Austrian regiments going to Silesia [off my hands, and upon YOURS, in a sense], eight instead of four that I spoke of: intending, probably, for Glatz, to replace Czernichef [a Czernichef off for home lately, in a most miraculous way; as readers shall hear!]—to replace Czernichef, and the blank he has left there? Eight of them: Your Majesty can have no difficulty; but I will detach Platen or somebody, if you order it; though I am myself perilously ill off here, so scattered into parts, not capable of speedy junction like your Majesty."
FRIEDRICH (14th-16th March). "Commissariat horses, drivers? I arranged and provided where everything was to be got. But if my orders are not executed, nor the requisitions brought in, of course there is failure. I am despatching Adjutant von Anhalt to Saxony a second time, to enforce matters. If I could be for three weeks in Saxony, myself, I believe I could put all on its right footing; but, as I must not stir two steps from here, I will send you Anhalt, with orders to the Generals, to compel them to their duty." [Schoning, iii. 301, 302.] "As to Grenadier Battalions GRANT and ROTHENBURG, it is absurd." (Henri falls silent for about a week, brooding his gloom;—not aware that still worse is coming.) King continues:—
KING (22d March). "Eight regiments, you said? Here, by enclosed List, are seventeen of them, names and particulars all given", which is rather a different view of the account against Silesia! Seventeen of them, going, not for Glatz, I should say, but to strengthen our Enemies hereabouts.
HENRI. "Hm, hah [answers only in German; dry military reports, official merely;—thinks of writing to Chief-Clerk Eichel, who is factotum in these spheres].... Artillery recruits are scarce in the extreme; demand bounty: five thalers, shall we say?"
KING. "Seventeen regiments of them, beyond question, instead of eight, coming on us: strange that you did n't warn me better. I have therefore ordered your Major-General Schmettau hitherward at once. As he has not done raising the contributions in the Lausitz, you must send another to do it, and have them ready when General Platen passes that way hither."—"'Five thalers bounty for artillery men" say you? It is not to be thought of. Artillery men can be had by conscription where you are." Henri (in silence, still more indignant) sends military reports exclusively. March 26th, Henri's gloom reaches the igniting point; he writes to Chief-Clerk Eichel:—
"Monsieur, you are aware that Adjutant von Anhalt is on the way hither. To judge by his orders, if they correspond to the Letters I have had from the King, Adjutant von Anhalt's appearance here will produce an embarrassment, from which I am resolved to extricate myself by a voluntary retirement from office. My totally ruined (ABIMEE) health, the vexations I have had, the fatigues and troubles of war, leave in me little regret to quit the employment. I solicit only, from your attentions and skill of management, that my retreat be permitted to take place with the decency observed towards those who have served the State. I have not a high opinion of my services; but perhaps I am not mistaken in supposing that it would be more a shame to the King than to me if he should make me endure all manner of chagrins during my retirement." [Schoning, iii. 307.]
Eichel sinks into profound reflection; says nothing. How is this fire to be got under? Where is the place to trample on it, before opening door or window, or saying a word to the King or anybody?
HENRI (same day, 26th March). "My dearest Brother,—In the List you send me of those seventeen Austrian regiments, several, I am informed, are still in Saxony; and by all the news that I get, there are only eight gone towards Silesia."—"From Leipzig my accounts are, the Reichs Army is to make a movement in advance, and Prince Xavier with the Saxons was expected at Naumburg the 20th ult. I know not if you have arranged with Duke Ferdinand for a proportionate succor, in case his French also should try to penetrate into Saxony upon me? I am, with the profoundest attachment, your faithful and devoted servant and Brother."
KING (30th March). "Seventeen of them, you may depend; I am too well informed to be allowed to doubt in any way. What you report of the Reichsfolk and Saxons moving hither, thither; that seems to me a bit of game on their part. They will try to cut one post from you, then another, unless you assemble a corps and go in upon them. Till you decide for this resolution, you have nothing but chicanes and provocations to expect there. As to Duke Ferdinand of Brunswick, I don't imagine that his Orders [from England] would permit him what you propose [for relief of yourself]: at any rate, you will have to write at least thrice to him,—that is to say, waste three weeks, before he will answer No or Yes. You yourself are in force enough for those fellows: but so long as you keep on the defensive alone, the enemy gains time, and things will always go a bad road." Henri's patience is already out; this same day he is writing to the King.
HENRI (30th March).... "You have hitherto received proofs enough of my ways of thinking and acting to know that if in reality I was mistaken about those eight regiments, it can only have been a piece of ignorance on the part of my spy: meanwhile you are pleased to make me responsible for what misfortune may come of it. I think I have my hands full with the task laid on me of guarding 4,000 square miles of country with fewer troops than you have, and of being opposite an enemy whose posts touch upon ours, and who is superior in force. Your preceding Letters [from March 16th hitherto], on which I have wished to be silent, and this last proof of want of affection, show me too clearly to what fortune I have sacrificed these Six Years of Campaigning."
KING (3d April: Official Orders given in Teutsch; at the tail of which). "Spare your wrath and indignation at your servant, Monseigneur! You, who preach indulgence, have a little of it for persons who have no intention of offending you, or of failing in respect for you; and deign to receive with more benignity the humble representations which the conjunctures sometimes force from me. F."—Which relieves Eichel of his difficulties, and quenches this sputter. [Plucked up from the waste imbroglios of SCHONING (iii. 296-311), by arranging and omitting.]
Prince Henri, for all his complaining, did beautifully this Season again (though to us it must be silent, being small-war merely;—and in particular, MAY 12th) early in the morning, simultaneously in many different parts, burst across the Mulda, 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. [Bericht von dem Uebergang uber die Mulde, den der Prinz Heinrich den 12ten May 1762 glucklich ausgefuhrt (in Seyfarth, Beylagen, iii, 280-291).] 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 Marechal 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, Jan. 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 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 rumors, 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 pre-eminently good? The unspeakable Sovereign Woman, is she verily dead, then, and become peaceable to me forevermore?" 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,"—rumors 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, INFAME CATIN 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 lang 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 SCHOOL-BOY, come to the age of thirty-four), 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 Holstein-Danish 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. 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 ghastly grotesque 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 AEschylus, had there been a Shakspeare!—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 DA FE along with the others. AUTO DA 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 Neighbors 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 burglary 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.
"He left as Heir a poor young Boy, at this time only two years old. His young Widow Hedwig survived him six years. [Michaelis, ii. 618-629.] Her poor child grew to manhood; and had tragic fortunes in this world; Danes again burglarious in that part, again robbing this poor Boy at discretion, so soon as Karl XII. became unfortunate; and refusing to restore (have not restored Schleswig at all [A.D. 1864, HAVE at last had to do it, under unexpected circumstances!]):—a grimly sad story to the now Peter, his only Child! This poor Duke at last died, 18th June, 1739, age thirty-nine; the now Peter then about 11,—who well remembers tragic Papa; tragic Mamma not, who died above ten years before. [Michaelis, ii. 617; Hubner, tt. 227, 229.]
"Czar Peter called the Great had evidently a pity for this unfortunate Duke, a hope in his just hopes; and pleaded, as did various others, and endeavored with the unjust Danes, mostly without effect. Did, however, give him one of his Daughters to wife;—the result of whom is this new Czar Peter, called the Third: a Czar who is Sovereign of Holstein, and has claims of Sovereignty in Sweden, right of heirship in Schleswig, and of damages against Denmark, which are in litigation to this day. The Czarina CATIN, tenderly remembering her Sister, would hear of no Heir to Russia but this Peter. Peter, in virtue of his paternal affinities, was elected King of Sweden about the same time; but preferred Russia,—with an eye to his Danes, some think. For certain, did adopt the Russian Expectancy, the Greek religion so called; and was," in the way we saw long years ago, "married (or to all appearance married) to Catharina Alexiewna of Anhalt-Zerbst, born in Stettin; [Herr Preuss knows the house: "Now Dr. Lehmann's [at that time the Governor of Stettin's], in which also Czar Paul's second Spouse [Eugen of Wurtemberg a NEW Governor's Daughter], who is Mother of the Czars that follow, was born:" Preuss, ii. 310, 311. Catharine, during her reign, was pious in a small way to the place of her cradle; sent her successive MEDALS &c. to Stettin, which still has them to show.] a Lady who became world-famous as Czarina of the Russias.
"Peter is an abstruse creature; has lived, all this while, with his Catharine an abstruse life, which would have gone altogether mad except for Catharine's superior sense. An awkward, ardent, but helpless kind of Peter, with vehement desires, with a dash of wild magnanimity even: but in such an inextricable element, amid such darkness, such provocations of unmanageable opulence, such impediments, imaginary and real,—dreadfully real to poor Peter,—as made him the unique of mankind in his time. He 'used to drill cats,' it is said, and to do the maddest-looking things (in his late buried-alive condition);—and fell partly, never quite, which was wonderful, into drinking, as the solution of his inextricabilities. Poor Peter: always, and now more than ever, the cynosure of vulturous vulpine neighbors, withal; which infinitely aggravated his otherwise bad case!—
"For seven or eight years, there came no progeny, nor could come; about the eighth or ninth, there could, and did: the marvellous Czar Paul that was to be. Concerning whose exact paternity there are still calumnious assertions widely current; to this individual Editor much a matter of indifference, though on examining, his verdict is: 'Calumnies, to all appearance; mysteries which decent or decorous society refuses to speak of, and which indecent is pretty sure to make calumnies out of.' Czar Paul may be considered genealogically genuine, if that is much an object to him. Poor Paul, does not he father himself, were there nothing more? Only that Peter and this Catharine could have begotten such a Paul. Genealogically genuine enough, my poor Czar,—that needed to be garroted so very soon!
2. OF CATHARINE AND THE BOOKS UPON PETER AND HER. "Catharine too had an intricate time of it under the Catin; which was consoled to her only by a tolerably rapid succession of lovers, the best the ground yielded. In which department it is well known what a Thrice-Greatest she became: superior to any Charles II.; equal almost to an August the Strong! Of her loves now and henceforth, which are heartily uninteresting to me, I propose to say nothing farther; merely this, That in extent they probably rivalled the highest male sovereign figures (and are to be put in the same category with these, and damned as deep, or a little deeper);—and cost her, in gifts, in magnificent pensions to the EMERITI (for she did things always in a grandiose manner, quietly and yet inexorably dismissing the EMERITUS with stores of gold), the considerable sum of 20 millions sterling, in the course of her long reign. One, or at most two, were off on pension, when Hanbury Williams brought Poniatowski for her, as we transiently saw. Poniatowski will be King of Poland in the course of events....
"Russia is not a publishing country; the Books about Catharine are few, and of little worth. TOOKE, an English Chaplain; CASTERA, an unknown French Hanger-on, who copies from Tooke, or Tooke from him: these are to be read, as the bad-best, and will yield little satisfactory insight; Castera, in particular, a great deal of dubious backstairs gossip and street rumor, which are not delightful to a reader of sense. In fine, there has been published, in these very years, a FRAGMENT of early AUTOBIOGRAPHY by Catharine herself,—a credible and highly remarkable little Piece: worth all the others, if it is knowledge of Catharine you are seeking. [Memoires de l'Imperatrice Catharine II., ecrits par elle-meme (A. Herzen editing; London, 1859)];—which we already cited, on occasion of Catharine's marriage.
Anonymous (Castera), Vie de Catharine II., Imperatrice de Russie a Paris, 1797; or reprinted, most of it, enough of it, A VARSOVIE, 1798) 2 tomes, 8vo. Tooke, Life of Catharine II. (4th edition, London, 1800), 3 vols. 8vo; View of the Russian Empire during &c. (London, 1799), 3 vols. 8vo.-Hermann, Geschichte des Russischen Staats (Hamburg, 1853 ET ANTEA), v. 241-308 et seq.; is by much the most solid Book, though a dull and heavy. Stenzel cites, as does Hermann, a Biographie Peters des IIIten; which no doubt exists, in perhaps 3 volumes; but where, when, by whom, or of what quality, they do not tell me. A most placid, solid, substantial young Lady comes to light there; dropped into such an element as might have driven most people mad. But it did not her; it only made her wiser and wiser in her generation. Element black, hideous, dirty, as Lapland Sorcery;—in which the first clear duty is, to hold one's tongue well, and keep one's eyes open. Stars,—not very heavenly, but of fixed nature, and heavenly to Catharine,—a star or two, shine through the abominable murk: Steady, patient; steer silently, in all weathers, towards these!
"Young Catharine's immovable equanimity in this distracted environment strikes us very much. Peter is careering, tumbling about, on all manner of absurd broomsticks, driven too surely by the Devil; terrific-absurd big Lapland Witch, surrounded by multitudes smaller, and some of them less ugly. Will be Czar of Russia, however;—and is one's so-called Husband. These are prospects for an observant, immovably steady-going young Woman! The reigning Czarina, old CATIN herself, is silently the Olympian Jove to Catharine, who reveres her very much. Though articulately stupid as ever, in this Book of Catharine's, she comes out with a dumb weight, of silence, of obstinacy, of intricate abrupt rigor, which—who knows but it may savor of dumb unconscious wisdom in the fat old blockhead? The Book says little of her, and in the way of criticism, of praise or of blame, nothing whatever; but one gains the notion of some dark human female object, bigger than one had fancied it before.
"Catharine steered towards her stars. Lovers were vouchsafed her, of a kind (her small stars, as we may call them); and, at length, through perilous intricacies, the big star, Autocracy of All the Russias,—through what horrors of intricacy, that last! She had hoped always it would be by Husband Peter that she, with the deeper steady head, would be Autocrat: but the intricacies kept increasing, grew at last to the strangling pitch; and it came to be, between Peter and her, 'Either you to Siberia (perhaps FARTHER), or else I!' And it was Peter that had to go;—in what hideous way is well enough known; no Siberia, no Holstein thought to be far enough for Peter:—and Catharine, merely weeping a little for him, mounted to the Autocracy herself. And then, the big star of stars being once hers, she had, not in the lover kind alone, but in all uncelestial kinds, whole nebulae and milky-ways of small stars. A very Semiramis, the Louis-Quatorze of those Northern Parts. 'Second Creatress of Russia,' second Peter the Great in a sense. To me none of the loveliest objects; yet there are uglier, how infinitely uglier: object grandiose, if not great."—We return to Friedrich and the Death of Catin.
Colonel Hordt, I believe, was the first who credibly apprised Friedrich of the great Russian Event. Colonel Hordt, late of the Free-Corps HORDT, but captive since soon after the Kunersdorf time; and whose doleful quasi-infernal "twenty-five months and three days" in the Citadel of Petersburg have changed in one hour into celestial glories in the Court of that City;—as readers shall themselves see anon. By Hordt or by whomsoever, the instant Friedrich heard, by an authentic source, of the new Czar's Accession, Friedrich hastened to turn round upon him with the friendliest attitude, with arms as if ready to open; dismissing all his Russian Prisoners; and testifying, in every polite and royal way, how gladly he would advance if permitted. To which the Czar, by Hordt and by other channels, imperially responded; rushing forward, he, as if with arms flung wide.
January 31st is Order from the King, [In SCHONING, iii. 275 ("Breslau, 31st January, 1762").] That our Russian Prisoners, one and all, shod, clad and dieted, be forthwith set under way from Stettin: in return for which generosity the Prussians, from Siberia or wherever they were buried, are, soon after, hastening home in like manner. Gudowitsh, Peter's favorite Adjutant, who had been sent to congratulate at Zerbst, comes round by Breslau (February 20th), and has joyfully benign audience next day; directly on the heel of whom, Adjutant Colonel von Goltz, who KAMMERHERR as well as Colonel, and understands things of business, goes to Petersburg. February 23d, Czarish Majesty, to the horror of Vienna and glad astonishment of mankind, emits Declaration (Note to all the Foreign Excellencies in Petersburg), "That there ought to be Peace with this King of Prussia; that Czarish Majesty, for his own part, is resolved on the thing; gives up East Preussen and the so-called conquests made; Russian participation in such a War has ceased." And practically orders Czernichef, who is wintering with his 20,000 in Glatz, to quit Glatz and these Austrian Combinations, and march homeward with his 20,000. Which Czernichef, so soon as arrangements of proviant and the like are made, hastens to do;—and does, as far as Thorn; but no farther, for a reason that will be seen. On the last day of March, Czernichef—off about a week ago from Glatz, and now got into the Breslau latitude—came across, with a select Suite of Four, to pay his court there; and had the honor to dine with his Majesty, and to be, personally too, a Czernichef agreeable to his Majesty.
The vehemency of Austrian Diplomacies at Petersburg; and the horror of Kaiserinn and Kriegshofrath in Vienna,—who have just discharged 20,000 of their own people, counting on this Czernichef, and being dreadfully tight for money,—may be fancied. But all avails nothing. The ardent Czar advances towards Friedrich with arms flung wide. Goltz and Gudowitsh are engaged on Treaty of Peace; Czar frankly gives up East Preussen, "Yours again; what use has Russia for it, Royal Friend?" Treaty of Peace goes forward like the drawing of a Marriage-settlement (concluded MAY 5th); and, in a month more, has changed into Treaty of Alliance;—Czernichef ordered to stop short at Thorn; to turn back, and join himself to this heroic King, instead of fighting against him. Which again Czernichef, himself an admirer of this King, joyfully does;—though, unhappily, not with all the advantage he expected to the King.
Swedish Peace, Queen Ulrique and the Anti-French Party now getting the upper hand, had been hastening forward in the interim (finished, at Hamburg, MAY 2d): a most small matter in comparison to the Russian; but welcome enough to Friedrich;—though he said slightingly of it, when first mentioned: "Peace? I know not hardly of any War there has been with Sweden;—ask Colonel Belling about it!" Colonel Belling, a most shining swift Hussar Colonel, who, with a 2,000 sharp fellows, hanging always on the Swedish flanks, sharp as lightning, "nowhere and yet everywhere," as was said of him, has mainly, for the last year or two, had the management of this extraordinary "War." Peace over all the North, Peace and more, is now Friedrich's. Strangling imbroglio, wide as the world, has ebbed to man's height; dawn of day has ripened into sunrise for Friedrich; the way out is now a thing credible and visible to him. Peter's friendliness is boundless; almost too boundless! Peter begs a Prussian Regiment,—dresses himself in its uniform, Colonel of ITZENPLITZ; Friedrich begs a Russian Regiment, Colonel of SCHUWALOF: and all is joyful, hopeful; marriage-bells instead of dirge ditto and gallows ditto,—unhappily not for very long.