LITMIR.BIZ

Скачать книгу

himself is at present so ashamed of his behavior, that he says, He will order Count Degenfeld [Graf von Degenfeld, going at a leisurely pace to remove NOSTI from his perch among you] [Supra, p. 197.] to hasten his journey to England, with orders to endeavor to make up the affair immediately.

      "As I had already received the King's Orders, by Captain Guy Dickens, To return home forthwith, I thought, after what had happened, the sooner I left this place the better; and the rather because it might be proper I should make a report of it to his Majesty. I shall therefore set out a few hours after this Messenger; and will make all the expedition possible.

      "The King of Prussia sets out for Anspach on Saturday next,"—11th July is Tuesday, Saturday next will be 15th July, which proves correct. [Fassmann, p. 410.] "I am, with the utmost respect, My Lord, Your Lordship's most obedient and most humble servant,

      CHARLES HOTHAM."

      [State-Paper Office: Prussian Despatches, vol. xli.] No sooner was the door slammed to than his Majesty began to repent. At sight of the demand for Post-horses, he repented bitterly; sent Borck to ask Hotham to dinner, with what success we have seen. Sent Borck to negotiate, to correspond, to consult with Dickens, to do his utmost in pacifying Hotham. All which Correspondence exists, but is not worth giving. Borck's remonstrances are in rugged soldier-like style, full of earnestness and friendliness. Do not wreck, upon trifles, a noble interest we have in common; King is jealous about foreign interference with his Ministers, but meant nothing; I tell you it is nothing I—Hotham is polite, good-tempered; but remains inflexible: With myself, on my own score, it were soon settled, or is already settled; but with the King my Master—no expedient but post-horses! The Diplomatist world of Berlin is in a fuss; Queen Sophie and "the Minister of Denmark," with other friendly Ministers, how busy! "All day," this day and the next, "they spent in comings and goings" [Wilhelmina, i. 229, 230.] advising Hotham to relent: Hotham could not relent. The Crown-Prince himself writes, urged by a message from his Mother; Crown-Prince sends Katte off from Potsdam with this Billet [Ib. i. 230.] (if this be a correct copy to translate from)

      TO HIS EXCELLENCY MONSIEUR THE CHEVALIER HOTHAM.

      "POTSDAM, 11th July, 1730.

      "MONSIEUR—Having learned by M. de Leuvener," the Danish Minister, a judicious well-affected man, "what the King my Father's ultimate intentions are, I cannot doubt but you will yield to his desires. Think, Monsieur, that my happiness and my Sister's depend on the resolution you shall take, and that your answer will mean the union or the disunion forever of the two Houses! I flatter myself that it will be favorable, and that you will yield to my entreaties. I never shall forget such a service, but recognize it all my life by the most perfect esteem," with which I now am, TOUT A VOUS,

      "FREDERIC."

      This Billet Katte delivers: but to this also Hotham remains inexorable; polite, hopeful even: No harm will come; Degenfeld will go, I myself will help when at home; but for the present, no resource but post-horses! Which they at last yield him, the very post-horses ready to weep.

      And so Hotham, spirited judicious English gentleman, rolls off homewards, ["Wednesday," 12th (Dickens).] a few hours after his Courier—and retires honorably into the shades of private life, steady there thenceforth. He has not been successful in Berlin: surely his Negotiation is now OUT in all manner of senses! Long ago (to use our former ignoble figure) he had "laid down the bellows, though there was still smoke traceable:" but now, by this Grumkow Letter, he has, as it were, struck the POKER through the business; and that dangerous manoeuvre, not proving successful, has been fatal and final! Queen Sophie and certain others may still flatter themselves; but it is evident the Negotiation is at last complete. What may lie in flight to England and rash desperate measures, which Queen Sophie trembles to think of, we do not know: but by regular negotiation this thing can never be.

      It is darkly apprehended the Crown-Prince still meditates Flight; the maternal heart and Wilhelmina's are grieved to see Lieutenant Katte so much in his confidence—could wish him a wiser councillor in such predicaments and emergencies! Katte is greatly flattered by the Prince's confidence; even brags of it in society, with his foolish loose tongue. Poor youth, he is of dissolute ways; has plenty of it "unwise intellect," little of the "wise" kind; and is still under the years of discretion. Towards Wilhelmina there is traceable in him something—something as of almost loving a bright particular star, or of thrice-privately worshipping it for his own behoof. And Wilhelmina, during the late Radewitz time, when Mamma "gave four Apartments (or Royal Soirees) weekly," was severe upon him, and inaccessible in these Court Soirees. A rash young fool; carries a loose tongue:—still worse, has a Miniature, recognizable as Wilhelmina; and would not give it up, either for the Queen's Majesty or me!—"Thousand and thousand pardons, High Ladies both; my loose tongue shall be locked: but these two Miniatures, the Prince and Princess Royal, I copied them from two the Prince had lent me and has got back, ask me not for these;—never, oh, I cannot ever!"—Upon which Wilhelmina had to take a high attitude, and pass him speechless in the Soirees. The foolish fellow:—and yet one is not heartily angry either; only reserved in the Soirees; and anxious about one's Brother in such hands.

      Friedrich Wilhelm repents much that Hotham explosion; is heard saying that he will not again treat in person with any Envoy from foreign parts, being of too hot temper, but will leave his Ministers to do it. [Dickens's Despatch, Berlin, 22d July (n.s.), 1730.] To Queen Sophie he says coldly, "Wilhelmina's marriage, then, is off; an end to IT. Abbess of Herford [good Protestant refuge for unprovided Females of Quality, which is in our gift], let her be Abbess there;"—and writes to the then extant Abbess to make Wilhelmina "Coadjutress," or Heir-Apparent to that Chief-Nunship! Nay what is still more mortifying, my Brother says, "On the whole, I had better, had not I?" The cruel Brother; but indeed the desperate!—for things are mounting to a pitch in this Household.

      Queen Sophie's thoughts—they are not yet of surrender; that they will never be, while a breath of life is left to Queen Sophie and her Project: we may fancy Queen Sophie's mood. Nor can his Majesty be in a sweet temper; his vexations lately have been many. First, England is now off, not off-and-on as formerly: that comfortable possibility, hanging always in one's thoughts, is fairly gone; and now we have nothing but the Kaiser to depend on for Julich and Berg, and the other elements of our salvation in this world! Then the St.-Mary-Axe discoveries, harassing shadows of suspicion that will rise from them, and the unseemly Hotham catastrophe and one's own blame in it; Womankind and Household still virtually rebellious, and all things going awry; Majesty is in the worst humor;—bullies and outrages his poor Crown-Prince almost worse than ever. There have been rattan-showers, hideous to think of, descending this very week [Guy Dickens's Despatch, 18th July, 1730.] on the fine head, and far into the high heart of a Royal Young Man; who cannot, in the name of manhood, endure, and must not, in the name of sonhood, resist, and vainly calls to all the gods to teach him WHAT he shall do in this intolerable inextricable state of matters.

      Fate and these two Black-Artists have driven Friedrich Wilhelm nearly mad; and he, in turn, is driving everybody so. He more than suspects Friedrich of an intention to fly; which is horrible to Friedrich Wilhelm: and yet he bullies him occasionally, as a spiritless wretch, for bearing such treatment. "Cannot you renounce the Heir-Apparentship, then; your little Brother is a fine youth. Give it up; and go, unmolested, to the—in fact to the Devil: Cannot you?"—"If your Majesty, against the honor of my Mother, declare that I am not your eldest son: Yes, so; not otherwise, ever!" modestly but steadily persists the young man, whenever this expedient is proposed to him—as perhaps it already sometimes is. Whereat the desperate Father can only snort indignantly futile. A case growing nearly desperate. Desperate, yes, on all hands: unless one had the "high mast" above alluded to, with two pulleys and ropes; and could see a certain Pair of Scoundrels mount rapidly thither, what hope is there for anybody? A violent crisis does not last, however; that is one certainty in it. Either these agonistic human beings, young and old, will all die, all go to Bedlam, with their intolerable woes; or else something of explosive nature will take place among them. The maddest boil, unless it kill you with its torments, does at length burst, and become an abscess.

      Of course Captain Dickens, the instant Hotham was gone, hastened privily to see the Crown-Prince; saw Katte and him "at the Gate of the Potsdam Palace at midnight," [Wilhelmina; Ranke, i. 301.] or in some other less romantic way;—read him

Скачать книгу