LITMIR.BIZ

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next made his visit; but he was a dry subject in comparison, of whom no Princess can say much. Prince Friedrich will know him better by and by.

      Young Maurice, "Count of Saxony," famed afterwards as MARECHAL DE SAXE, he also is here with his Half-Sister Orzelska and the others, in the train of the paternal Man of Sin; and makes acquaintance with Friedrich. He is son of the female Konigsmark called Aurora ("who alone of mortals could make Charles Twelfth fly his ground"); nephew, therefore, of the male Konigsmark who was cut down long ago at Hanover, and buried in the fireplace. He resembles his Father in strength, vivacity, above all things in debauchery, and disregard of finance. They married him at the due years to some poor rich woman; but with her he has already ended; with her and with many others. Courland, Adrienne Lecouvreur, Anne Iwanowna with the big cheek:—the reader has perhaps searched out these things for himself from the dull History-Books;—or perhaps it was better for him if he never sought them? Dukedom of Courland, connected with Polish sovereignty, and now about to fall vacant, was one of Count Maurice's grand sallies in the world. Adrienne Lecouvreur, foolish French Actress, lent him all the 30,000 pounds she had gathered by holding the mirror up to Nature and otherwise, to prosecute this Courland business; which proved impossible for him. He was adventurous enough, audacious enough; fought well; but the problem was, To fall in love with the Dowager Anne Iwanowna, Cousin of Czar Peter II.; big brazen Russian woman (such a cheek the Pictures give her, in size and somewhat in expression like a Westphalia ham!), who was Widow of the last active Duke:—and this, with all his adventurous audacity, Count Maurice could not do. The big Widow discovered that he did not like Westphalia hams in that particular form; that he only pretended to like them; upon which, in just indignation, she disowned and dismissed him; and falling herself to be Czarina not long afterwards, and taking Bieren the Courlander for her beloved, she made Bieren Duke, and Courland became impossible for Count Maurice.

      However, he too is a dashing young fellow; "circular black eyebrows, eyes glittering bright, partly with animal vivacity, partly with spiritual;" stands six feet in his stockings, breaks horse-shoes with his hands; full of irregular ingenuity and audacity; has been soldiering about, ever since birth almost; and understands many a thing, though the worst SPELLER ever known. With him too young Fritz is much charmed: the flower, he, of the illegitimate three hundred and fifty-four, and probably the chief achievement of the Saxon Man of Sin in this world, where he took such trouble. Friedrich and he maintained some occasional correspondence afterwards; but, to judge by Friedrich's part of it (mere polite congratulations on Fontenoy, and the like), it must have been of the last vacuity; and to us it is now absolute zero, however clearly spelt and printed. [Given altogether in OEuvres de Frederic le Grand, xvii. 300–309. See farther, whoever has curiosity, Preuss, Friedrichs Lebensgeschichte, iii. 167–169; Espagnac, Vie du Comte de Saxe (a good little military Book, done into German, Leipzig, 1774, 2 vols.); Cramer, Denkwurdigkeiten der Grafin Aurora von Konigsmark (Leipzig, 1836); &c. &c.]

      The Physically Strong, in some three weeks, after kindling such an effulgence about Berlin as was never seen before or since in Friedrich Wilhelm's reign, went his way again—"towards Poland for the Diet," or none of us cares whither or for what. Here at Berlin he has been sublime enough. Some of the phenomena surpassed anything Wilhelmina ever saw: such floods and rows of resplendent people crowding in to dinner; and she could not but contrast the splendor of the Polish retinues and their plumages and draperies, with the strait-buttoned Prussian dignitaries, all in mere soldier uniform, succinct "blue coat, white linen gaiters," and no superfluity even in the epaulettes and red facings. At table, she says, they drank much, talked little, and bored one another a great deal (S'ENNUYOIENT BEAUCOUP).

      OF PRINCESS WHILHELMINA'S FOUR KINGS AND OTHER INEFFECTUAL SUITORS.

       Table of Contents

      Dilapidated Polish Majesty, we observed, was extremely attentive to Wilhelmina; nor could she ascertain, for long after, what the particular reason was. Long after, Wilhelmina ascertained that there had been the wonderfulest scheme concocting, or as good as concocted, in these swearings of eternal friendship: no other than that of marrying her, Wilhelmina, now a slim maiden coming nineteen, to this dilapidated Saxon Man of Sin going (or limping) fifty-five, and broken by DEBAUCHES TERRIBLES (rivers of champagne and tokay, for one item), who had fallen a Widower last year! They had schemed it all out, Wilhelmina understands: Friedrich Wilhelm to advance such and such moneys as dowry, and others furthermore as loan, for the occasions of his Polish Majesty, which are manifold; Wilhelmina to have The Lausitz (LUSATIA) for jointure, Lausitz to be Friedrich Wilhelm's pledge withal; and other intricate conditions; [Wilhelmina, i. 114.] what would Wilhelmina have thought? One shudders to contemplate;—hopes it might mostly be loose brain-web and courtier speculation, never settled towards fact.

      It is certain, the dilapidated Polish Majesty having become a Widower, questions would rise, Will not he marry again? And with whom? Certain also, he wants Friedrich Wilhelm's alliance; having great schemes on the anvil, which are like to be delicate and perilous—schemes of "partitioning Poland," no less; that is to say, cutting off the outskirts of Poland, flinging them to neighboring Sovereigns as propitiation, or price of good-will, and rendering the rest hereditary in his family. Pragmatic Sanction once acceded to, would probably propitiate the Kaiser? For which, and other reasons, Polish Majesty still keeps that card in his hand. Friedrich Wilhelm's alliance, with such an army and such a treasury, the uses of that are evident to the Polish Majesty.—By the blessing of Heaven, however, his marriage with Wilhelmina never came to anything: his Electoral Prince, Heir-Apparent, objected to the jointures and alienations, softly, steadily; and the project had to drop before Wilhelmina ever knew of it.

      And this man is probably one of the "Four Kings" she was to be asked by? A Swedish Officer, with some skill in palmistry, many years ago, looked into her innocent little hand, and prophesied, "She was to be in terms of courtship, engagement or as good as engagement, with Four Kings, and to wed none of them." Wilhelmina counts them in her mature days. The FIRST will surprise everybody—Charles XII. of Sweden;—who never can have been much of a suitor, the rather as the young Lady was then only six gone; but who, might, like enough, be talked of, by transient third-parties, in those old Stralsund times. The SECOND—cannot WE guess who the second is? The THIRD is this August the dilapidated Strong. As to the SECOND, Wilhelmina sees already, in credulous moments, that it may be Hanover Fred, whom she will never marry either;—and does not see (nor did, at the time of writing her Memoires, "in 1744" say the Books) that Fred never would come to Kingship, and that the Palmistry was incomplete in that point. The FOURTH, again, is clearly young Czar Peter II.; of whom there was transient talk or project, some short time after this of the dilapidated THIRD. But that too came to nothing; the poor young lad died while only fifteen; nay he had already "fallen in love with his Aunt Elizabeth" (INFAME CATIN DU NORD in time coming), and given up the Prussian prospect. [He was the Great Peter's Grandson (Son having gone a tragical road )]; Czar, May, 1727—January, 1730: Anne Iwanowna (Great Peter's Niece, elder Brother's Daughter), our Courland friend with the big cheek, succeeded; till her death, October, 1740: then, after some slight shock of revolution, the Elizabeth just mentioned, who was Daughter of the Great Peter by his little brown Czarina Catherine whom we once met. See Mannstein, Memoirs of Russia (London, 1770), pp. 1–23, for some account of Peter II.; and the rest of the Volume for a really intelligent History of this Anne, at least of her Wars, where Mannstein himself usually had part.

      All which would be nothing, or almost less, to Wilhelmina, walking fancy-free there—were it not for Papa and Mamma, and the importunate insidious by-standers. Who do make a thing of it, first and last! Never in any romance or stage-play was young Lady, without blame, without furtherance and without hindrance of her own, so tormented about a settlement in life;—passive she, all the while, mere clay in the hands of the potter; and begging the Universe to have the extreme goodness only to leave her alone!—

      Thus too, among the train of King August in this Berlin visit, a certain Soldier Official of his, Duke of Sachsen Weissenfels, Johann Adolf by name, a poor Cadet Cousin of the Saxon House—another elderly Royal Highness of small possibility—was particularly attentive to Wilhelmina; now and on subsequent

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