French according to the usual manner, Frederic, but ever afterwards Federic. From six till seven o'clock the king had memorial against some intended arrangements at the opera, the king's postscript is "Elle est payée pour chanter et non pas écrire." Thus, again, when a veteran general had asked permis- usually a small concert, in which only musicians sion to retire, the official answer bids him reconsider his request, and there follows, manu propriâ, the significant remark-"The hens that will not lay I will not feed!"t But, perhaps, the most curious of all is the following in five words to Baron Arnim, in which five words it will be seen that three languages are blended, and each of the three incorrectly :"Scriptus est scriptus; nicht raisoniren."‡ or a few amateurs of the highest rank were admitted, and in which he himself played the flute. By long practice he had acquired excellent skill with that instrument. In his very last years, however, the decay of his front teeth deprived him of this daily recreation. Thus losing the power to execute, he lost also the wish to hear, music; and from that time forward he seldom appeared at any concert. During Frederick's earlier years his suppers had become justly renowned from the wit of the guests whom he there gathered round him, and from his own. Voltaire thus alludes to them in a sketch at that period of his royal patron's daily life : "Il est grand Roi tout le matin, Puisse-t-il n'avoir point de fin!" In some, though not numerous, cases the postscript seems to us utterly at variance with the letter. Thus when Colonel Philip Von Borcke wished to retire from the army and to live on his estates in Pomerania, the king (May 30, 1785) desired a letter to be drawn out for his royal signature, stating "that the said colonel has been always found faithful, brave, and irreproachable in times of war, and that his majesty has been constantly satisfied with him;" but in signing this document the king added with his own hand some German words to the following effect:-"Abschied for a Prussian who will not serve, and one ought But when, after 1763, the king discontinued his therefore to thank God that one gets rid of him." suppers, the void thus left in his evenings was Surely, whatever satisfaction or advantage the let- supplied by still frequently receiving a circle of ter might be intended to confer must have been distinguished men, as some of his generals, the turned into the very opposite by such an addition. Marquis d'Argens, Lord Marischal and Lucchesini. When this correspondence was completed, the His usual plan was to begin by reading aloud to king sometimes took a walk-out of doors if the them a passage from some book, which served as weather was fine, or through his saloons if it a kind of text for the lively conversation which rained. Sometimes he conversed with his friend Colonel Guichard, whom he had by patent newnamed Quintus Icilius, or some other staff-officer; sometimes he received the artists who had executed his commissions, or who brought him their works to view. But whenever his leisure served, the hours between four and six, or what remained of them, were devoted to his literary labors. It was during this interval that he composed nearly all the volumes in prose and verse which are now to be reprinted. Numerous, indeed, they are. As Voltaire says of him and to him, (March 24, 1772,) "Il a fait plus de livres qu'aucun des princes contemporains n'a fait de bâtards!" It is very remarkable, however, and not easily explained, that though Frederick practised authorship for almost half a century—though every day he was reading and writing German for business and French for pleasure-yet he never in any degree mastered the spelling of either language. To the last we find the strangest errors even in the most common words. Thus he writes winter HIVERD, old VIEU, flesh CHER, actress ACCTRISSE, and the word which in private life he most disliked, PEYER. It is also singular that up to the close of May, 1737, his majesty always signed his name in ensued. During the rest of the evening, or for the whole of it when no visitors came, the king was read to by one or more lecteurs, selecting either original French works or translations into French of the Greek and Latin classics. At about nine o'clock he went to bed. Such was the daily life of Frederick; a life not at all varied on Sundays or other holydays, but diversified by annual reviews of his troops and journeys to his provinces. From his alternate toils in the field and labors in the administration, it might be supposed that he had in truth an iron frame; on the contrary, however, his health from his childhood was delicate and variable. But the want of bodily strength was well supplied by his ardent and indomitable soul. The following are his own expressions in a letter to Voltaire of the 7th September, 1776 : It may be observed that the sketch of the king's daily life makes no reference whatever to a queen consort; yet in 1733, under his father's dictation, Frederick had espoused the Princess Elizabeth of told, he only remarked, “I did not think that the fellow had so much courage." But although gusts and sallies of passion were by no means uncommon with Frederick, we scarcely ever find them impel him in the transaction of state-business. A few cases to the contrary might Brunswick-Bevern, who survived not only through his whole reign of almost half a century, but even for eleven years afterwards, namely, till 1797. Frederick used to show especial anger and disThis princess was of exemplary character, filled pleasure whenever any man-servant contracted with admiration for the great deeds of her husband, either matrimony or a less legitimate connection and grateful for the slightest token of his notice; with the other sex. The same prejudice subsisted and so benevolent, that of the 41,000 dollars as- against the marriages of his familiar friends and signed her yearly she devoted no less than 24,000 associates, as D'Argens, Quintus Icilius, and Le to purposes of charity. Like Frederick she had a Catt. It is said, however, that in the last few taste for literature; but, unlike him, loved to en-years of Frederick's life, and when himself probcourage the German rather than the French; and, ably conscious of decay, he had become in all unlike him, also, she was embued with a deep and respects less ungracious and exacting to his housefervent, though unostentatious, feeling of religion. hold. For some years Frederick, dreading the resentment of his imperious and brutal father, had lived with her on apparently good terms; but on his own accession to the throne he allotted to her the château of Schönhausen for her separate residence. be gathered from Dr. Preuss' volumes, but should To the end of her life she never even saw the new be considered as only exceptions. Thus, on one palaces at Potsdam. At Berlin, however, during occasion, a young man, a Land-Rath, in Brandenwinter, she had apartments in the royal palace;burg, wrote to the king to state that a flight of the king used to dine with her in state three or locusts had appeared in his district. The king, in four times every year, and on all occasions showed his answer, expressed his disbelief that any of the her, as her character deserved, marks of his high plagues of Egypt could have strayed so far north. respect and esteem. But the union had been, Upon this the young Land-Rath sent to court some from the first, a constrained one; and he had little of the locusts in a box with air-holes, which box taste for hers, or indeed for any female, society; was no sooner opened by Frederick than the locusts men were, on all occasions, his chosen and favorite emerged and flew about the room, to his majesty's companions. great annoyance and ire. He immediately deThere are some points however, real or alleged, spatched a cabinet order, which still exists, under in Frederick's private life, which we do not wish the date of September 27, 1779, directing that in to discuss at large. We shall waive any further future no man shall be admitted a Land-Rath withtestimony, and merely insert without comment the out being at least thirty-five years of age—his following extract from a despatch of our own dis-majesty, it adds, being determined to have hencetinguished countryman, Lord Malmesbury, when forth no "children nor pert young fellows" in envoy at Berlin :office-[Kinder und junge nase-weise.] "At these moments when he (Frederick) lays aside the monarch and indulges himself in every kind of debauchery, he never suffers the instruments or partakers of these excesses to have the smallest influence over him. Some few he has rewarded; discarded several; but left most of them in the same situation he found them."* The conduct of Frederick, as a master and in his household, cannot be held deserving of praise. Some of his warmest admirers, as Dr. Preuss, acknowledge that he was extremely harsh towards his servants, chary in wages or rewards to them but, on the other hand, liberal of sharp reproofs and of blows both with his fist and with his cane. These, however, were their lighter punishments; when their offences seemed more serious they were at once discarded, or sent to prison, or enlisted as common soldiers. Thus, for instance, one valet de chambre named Deesen or Deiss, was thought to have embezzled some money, and had been ordered to enter the army as a drummer, when, on the 23d of July, 1775, the unhappy man put a pistol to his head, and fell a corpse in Frederick's own ante-chamber. The king was startled at the noise, and asked what had happened; on being Another curious point in Frederick's private life was his passion for snuff and for lap-dogs. Of the former, Lord Malmesbury (Diaries, vol. i., p. 6) speaks as follows:— "The king is a great taker of snuff. I could not even get a sight of his snuff-boxes, of which he has a most magnificent collection. That he carries is of an enormous size; and he takes it not by pinches, but by handfuls. It is difficult to approach him that comes to the valets de chambre from the snuff without sneezing. They pretend that the perquisite they get by drying his handkerchiefs is very considerable.' With respect to his four-footed favorites, the king had always about him several small English greyhounds; but of these only one was in favor at a time, the others being taken merely as companions and playmates to the fondling. Thus the others were carried out at night and brought in again in the morning, while the chosen one slept in his majesty's own bed, and by day was allowed a special chair, well cushioned, and close at his side. All of them, however, had license as they pleased to jump over or to sprawl upon the most costly articles of furniture; and stuffed leather balls, as * Compare Preuss, Lebens-Geschichte, vol. i., p. 424, note, with the despatch of Lord Malmesbury of July 29, 1775, giving a milder version of the king's reply. The tragic playthings for them, were provided in the several | stipends, as during his father's reign. apartments. Even during his campaigns Fred- fate of Luicius, who had been the Prussian envoy erick went attended by these canine companions. at the Hague in the time of Frederick William I., Thus, on the 8th of December, 1760, when the is told by Voltaire with much humor, and no doubt Marquis d'Argens entered the king's quarters at some exaggeration. During a severe winter this Leipsic, he found Frederick seated on the floor poor man had no money to buy fuel, and ventured with the dogs around, and a dish of fricasseed to cut down for fire-wood some trees in the garden chicken before him, out of which his majesty with of his official residence; but the fact came to the a stick was pushing the most dainty morsels to his ears of his royal master, who by return of post favorite. As these greyhounds died they were sent him a reprimand, and told him that he should buried on the terrace of Sans Souci, with the name be mulcted on that account a whole year's pay! of each on a gravestone; and Frederick in his will | Upon this, says Voltaire—“ Luicius désespéré, se expressed his desire that his own remains might coupa la gorge avec le seul rasoir qu'il eut. Un be interred by their side a parting token of his vieux valet vint à son secours, et lui sauva malattachment to them and of his contempt for man-heureusement la vie." kind! On this point, however, his wishes have not been complied with. There were only two of the king's tastes in which he ever allowed himself to step beyond the Of fine horses, also, Frederick, like most emi-bounds of the most exact economy-in eating and nent commanders, was fond. Several chargers in building. As to the former, we have shown alwhich he rode were killed or wounded under him ready that he belonged to the Apician school. But during his wars. Many of them bore the names even there he closely weighed the cost. He might of celebrated and contemporary ministers, as Choi- sometimes, though rarely, be extravagant beforeseul, Brühl, Kaunitz, Pitt, and Bute, not as being | hand, but when once the dainties were devoured, gifts from these statesmen, but as a compliment to he would often murmur at the bill. Here is an them. But poor Bute's was a hard fate. When instance. On the 9th of November, 1784, there his namesake, the Scottish peer, forsook the alli- were several additional dishes at his table, and an ance with Prussia, and concluded a separate peace account of the extra expenses then incurred was with France, Bute, the thorough-bred steed, was next day presented to him. It amounted to 25 in requital condemned to be yoked with a mule, thaler 10 groschen and 1 pfennigs. But his and employed in drawing to and fro the orange- majesty, with his own hand, wrote upon the martrees on the terraces at Potsdam. gin: "A robbery; for there were at table about an hundred oysters, which would cost 4 thalers; the cakes 2 thalers; the quab's liver 1 thaler; the cakes of Russian fashion 2 thalers: altogether it might be, perhaps, 11 thalers; the rest a robbery. To-day there was one extra dish; herrings with pease; it may cost 1 thaler; therefore everything above 12 thalers is an impertinent robbery. "(Signed) During the last ten years of his life, Frederick's favorite horse for his own riding was called Condé. Almost every day he was brought before his royal master, and fed with his own hand with sugar, figs, and melons. FREDERICK." The strict economy of Frederick had been at first enforced from the straits in which his father left him; it was afterwards recommended by the poverty of his provinces. From such provinces it As to building-if we observe the passion for was no light matter to raise, the sinews of war it, whenever it is once engaged in, it may perhaps against Austria, Russia, and France combined. deserve to be ranked among the highest and most From such provinces, even during the later years engrossing of human pleasures. The case of of peace, it was no easy task to maintain the larg- Frederick was no exception to this rule. He took est standing army in Europe, and to accumulate an ever fresh delight in the construction of new as treasure in reserve several millions of dollars in palaces and in the adornment of the old. In this the vaults of Magdeburg. Yet still this great department, as in most others, he had by his invirtue of economy, to which, next to his military domitable application acquired both knowledge and genius, Frederick owed his triumphs, when it came skill, and was able, though not always quite sucto be extended to trifles, or applied to points where cessfully, to direct his architects. There comsplendor is one element of usefulness, seems to monly lay at his side the volumes of Palladio and belong to the domain of Molière, and grow into Piranesi, from which he would give designs, or the part of Harpagon. Thus, at the king's own suggest ideas, for any of the new constructions in table, not a bottle of champagne was to be opened progress. He never issued any order for a buildwithout his own special command. Thus again, ing without a previous estimate of its expense. as we are told by Müller, the historian of Switzer-Yet, notwithstanding this wise precaution, when land, Frederick on one occasion, when examining his palace of Sans Souci came to be completed, the budget of his principality of Neuchatel, detected he was himself startled at the cost, and ordered and exposed an error of only three sous. Thus, that the accounts should be burned, so that no exalso, to the very close of his reign, he never ena- act knowledge of them might reach posterity. bled the Prussian envoys at foreign courts to as- The correspondence of Frederick was most mulsume a state at all commensurate to the importance tifarious, extending not only to ministers and stateswhich their country had acquired, but condemned men, but to many eminent authors and familiar them to languish in obscurity on most inadequate friends. On business his letters were always clear, We will subjoin the baron's reply ;— "SIRE-Je supplie très-hemblement votre Majesté d'agréer mes très humbles remercimens pour le bœuf qu'elle a bien voulu m'envoyer. Si je ne l'ai pas adoré comme le Dieu Apis, je l'ai du moins reçu avec toute la vénération que mérite son air respectable. Une foule de peuple l'a admiré à ma duire avec envie dans mon écurie, dont il ne sortira que pour être sacrifié au plus grand des Monarques; cérémonie qui sera accompagnée de cris sincères de Vive le Roi! Votre Majesté me permettra de finir ma lettre par ce cri, que je réunirai toute ma vie au profond respect avec lequel je suis, Sire, &c. PÖLLNITZ.* "La traite des nègres m'a toujours paru flétris-porte, et a cru que je l'en régalerais, et l'a vu consante pour l'humanité, et jamais je ne l'autoriserai ni la favoriserai par mes actions. D'ailleurs vous prétendez acheter et équiper vos vaisseaux en France et décharger vos marchandises de retour dans tel port de l'Europe que vous jugerez à propos, et c'est encore un motif de plus pour vous refuser mon pavillon. Toutefois si ce négoce a tant d'appas pour vous, vous n'avez quà' retourner en France pour satisfaire votre goût! Sur ce je prie Dieu qu'il vous ait en sa sainte et digne garde. FEDERIC." *. "Berlin, ce 7 Février, 1765." But the favorite correspondence of Frederick at this time, as the most interesting to us now, was with Voltaire. Considering the violent and public To estimate the full merit of this letter, let it breach between them in 1753-the contumelious be remembered how far in the rear was still the arrest on one side, and the biting pleasantries on the feeling of England on this subject at this date of other-it might have been supposed that these two 1782. How large a majority amongst ourselves eminent men would have ever thenceforth stood asunwere still firmly determined to maintain that in- der; but the king's admiration for his late prisoner famous traffic ! How many years of unrewarded at Frankfort was most ardent and sincere. He thortoil were still in store for Wilberforce and Clark-oughly believed, as he says in more than one passage of his writings, that Voltaire, as an epic poet son! The letters of Frederick to his friends, personal surpassed Homer, as a tragic poet Sophocles, and and literary, seem to us greatly superior in merit and interest to any of his other writings. Though sometimes to our misfortune studded with his own mawkish verses, they are often instructive and almost always entertaining. The following may serve as a short but agreeable specimen of his lighter style. It is addressed to one of his chamberlains, the veteran Baron Pöllnitz, who had just presented him with an unusual dainty—a turkey fattened upon walnuts. as a philosopher Plato. He never doubted that the author of the "Henriade," and of the "Annales de l'Empire," would be the main dispenser of fame for his own day. On the other hand, Voltaire was by no means insensible to the honor of numbering a monarch amongst the imitators of his versification and the pupils of his philosophy. Nor can any man who writes history be insensible to the higher merits of him who makes it—who, instead of merely commemorating, performs great "MONSIEUR LE BARON-Le dindon que votre deeds. Thus, even in the midst of their quarrel, Sérénité a eu la bonté de m'envoyer a été servi ce the seeds of reconciliation remained; and within midi sur ma table. On l'a pris pour une autruche, a very brief period there again arose between tant il était grand et pompeux; le goût s'en est them a regular correspondence, and an exchange trouvé admirable; et tous les convives ont convenu of graceful compliments. In 1775, for example, avec moi que vous étiez fait pour vous acquitter bien de tout ce que vous entrepreniez. Il me serait douloureux, Monsieur le Baron, de rester en arrière vis à vis de vous, et de ne pas songer à votre cuisine comme vous avez eu la bonté de penser à la mienne; mais comme je n'ai pas trouvé parmi les volatiles d'animal assez grand, et digne de vous être offert, je me suis rejeté sur les quadrupèdes. Je vous avoue que si j'avais pu trouver un éléphant blanc du Chah de Perse, que je me serais fait un plaisir de vous l'envoyer. Faute de cela, j'ai eu recours à un bœuf bien engraissé. Je me suis dit à moimême; un bœuf est un animal utile, laborieux et pesant; c'est mon emblême; l'age qui me mine m'apesantit tous les jours; je voudrais être laborieux et utile, et pour vous l'être en quelque façon vous voudrez bien accepter, Monsieur le Baron, le petit meuble de basse-cour que je prends la liberté de vous offrir; et comme je ne me suis pas fié sur ma propre habileté, je l'ai fait choisir chez le plus expert de tous les engraisseurs. ce, je prie Dieu, &c. FEDERIC.† "Potsdam, ce 6 Février, 1765." the king sent to Ferney a bust of Voltaire in Ber- "Avoir vécu dans le siècle de Voltaire; cela me suffit!"† exclaims the king. "Je mourrai,” cries the philosopher, "avec le regret de n'avoir pas achevé ma vie auprès du plus grand homme de l'Europe, que j'ose aimer autant qu'admirer ! "‡ The two friends, however, while thus exchanging laurel crowns, knew each other well; and whenever they wrote or spoke to third parties were far from gentle in their epithets. Sir Andrew Mitchell, for many years our envoy at Berlin, informs Surus: "What surprises me is, that whenever Voltaire's name is mentioned, his Prussian majesty never fails to give him the epithets he may de*Underkun-buch, vol. iii., pp. 134, 135. *Potsdam, ce 18 Avril, 1782. Urkunden-buch, vol. iv., p. 296. + Urkunden-buch, vol. iii., pp. 134, 135. + A Voltaire, le 24 Juliet, 1775. serve, which are the worst heart and greatest rascal now living; and yet with all this he continues to correspond with him!"* Voltaire, on his part, handled the character of Frederick with more wit, but equal rancor. In his secret correspondence with D'Alembert and others he often -besides other bitter jests-gives the king a covert nickname intended to convey a most foul reproach. And whenever during the seven years' war any disaster befell the Prussian arms, there went forth two sets of letters from Ferney-the one to Frederick expressing his sympathy and sorrow-the other to some minister or general on the opposite side, urging the allies to pursue their victory and to complete the ruin of his friend. The rich flow of Frederick's conversation is acknowledged and praised by all who had approached him, and chiefly by those who had themselves a similar skill. In that respect there can be no higher testimony than the following from the Prince de Ligne : "Il avait un son de voix fort doux, assez bas, et aussi agréable que le mouvement de ses lèvres, qui avait une grâce inexprimable; c'est ce qui faisait je crois qu'on ne s'apercevait pas qu'il fût, ainsi que les héros d'Homère, un peu babillard mais sublime. On ne pouvait certainement pas trouver un plus grand parleur que le Roi, mais on était charmé qu'il le fut!" With strangers, on the contrary, or with those whom he wished to please, Frederick knew how to pay a compliment with inimitable taste and skill. How graceful, for example, his exclamation to General Laudohn, the most able of his adversaries, during the interviews with the emperor's court in 1770, when he saw the general seated on the other side of the table: " 'Pray, sir, take a place at my side; I do not like to have you opposite!" In his correspondence, as in his conversation, the king seldom referred to the Christian faith without a scoff or a sneer. Having entirely made up his mind against its truth, he seems to have considered it unworthy of serious argument or even of reverent mention. He alludes with peculiar contempt to the piety of the poorer classes: "Ce paysan," says he, in one passage," qui parlait du Seigneur Dieu avec une vénération idiote !" But there were several points of philosophy or natural religion which Frederick loved to discuss and to hear discussed in his presence. Foremost among these was the immortality of the soul. It is not easy to say to which side of that great question his own belief inclined. Passages on both sides might be cited from his writings. Nay, there is one letter to Voltaire which, as it seems to us, assumes each opinion by turns in the course of the same sen tence: It is plain, however, that the king, who was, as aller entretenir Virgile de la Henriade, et descendre "Ma santé baisse à vue d'œil, et je pourrais bien we shall presently see, a warm partisan of monop-dans ce pays où nos chagrins, nos plaisirs, et nos olies in commerce, used to extend the same sys- espérances ne nous suivent plus, où votre beau génie tem to his conversation. The Prince de Ligne, et celui d'un goujat sont réduits à la même valeur, in the same account of his interview, adds with où enfin on se trouve dans l'état qui précède la much naïveté; "Encore, me disais-je à moi-même, naissance." (31 Oct. 1760.) il faudra bien que je dise un mot!"† Now, if, as the latter part of the sentence intimates, Frederick really held the gloomy faith of the ancient Roman: Quæris, quo jaceas post obitum loco? Quo non nata jacent" With his own dependents Frederick loved to season his conversation with practical jests. Thus, finding that the Marquis d'Argens was a hypochondriac as to health, he was wont sometimes in their interviews to interrupt himself with an exclamation on the ill-looks of his friend, upon which the poor-it is plain that there could be no prospect, as in marquis used to hurry home in affright and keep the first part of the sentence, of communing with his bed for the twenty-four hours following! Thus the spirit of Virgil or with any other. again, one day with the Baron de Pöllnitz, who was always in want of money, and who had already changed his religion, the king slily threw out some hints as to a rich canonry in Silesia then vacant and ready for a friend, upon which Pöllnitz, sistent with itself is infidelity! So incon The private life of Frederick in his later years as we have now portrayed it, without, as we believe, either exaggeration or concealment, contains beyond all question much that is harsh and strange, as Frederick had foreseen, swallowed the bait, and many things which may be laughed at, and many that very evening publicly abjured the Protestant which must be lamented. With such a life it for the Roman Catholic faith. But when next day seems at first sight incredible how even the interhe hastened back to court to announce his conver-ested adulation of the French philosophists could sion and to claim the benefice, he was told by award him the epithet of "Great." Perhaps, too, Frederick, to his great dismay, that the prize had our satisfaction at this epithet will hardly increase just before been granted to another candidate. His majesty added with a bitter taunt, though with affected sympathy, "Que puis-je faire pour vous maintenant ? Ah! je me rappelle qu'il me reste encore à nommer à une place de Rabbin; faitesvous Juif, et je vous la promets!" 66 when we are told how freely it was adopted by himself how frequently the words FRIDERICVS MAGNVs" appear on his own inscriptions. But how changed the scene when we come to view the same character from another aspect-as a statesman or a warrior! The injustice of all his wars -since all arose in fact from his robbery of Silesia in the first year of his reign, with no other right *A Voltaire, le 3 Février, 1742. |
