History of Friedrich II of Prussia V 11 [8]
his Time, and capable of DOING its inarticulate or dumb aspirings,
belongs that questionable honor; and a very singular one it would
have seemed to Friedrich, had he lived to see what it meant!
Friedrich's rapidity and activity, in the first months of his
reign, were wonderful to mankind; as indeed through life he
continued to be a most rapid and active King. He flies about;
mustering Troops, Ministerial Boards, passing Edicts, inspecting,
accepting Homages of Provinces;--decides and does, every day that
passes, an amazing number of things. Writes many Letters, too;
finds moments even for some verses; and occasionally draws a
snatch of melody from his flute.
His Letters are copiously preserved; but, as usual, they are in
swift official tone, and tell us almost nothing. To his Sisters he
writes assurances; to his friends, his Suhms, Duhans, Voltaires,
eager invitations, general or particular, to come to him.
"My state has changed," is his phrase to Voltaire and other dear
intimates; a tone of pensiveness, at first even of sorrow and
pathos traceable in it; "Come to me,"--and the tone, in an old
dialect, different from Friedrich's, might have meant, "Pray for
me." An immense new scene is opened, full of possibilities of good
and bad. His hopes being great, his anxieties, the shadow of them,
are proportionate. Duhan (his good old Tutor) does arrive,
Algarotti arrives, warmly welcomed, both: with Voltaire there are
difficulties; but surely he too will, before long, manage to
arrive. The good Suhm, who had been Saxon Minister at Petersburg
to his sorrow this long while back, got in motion soon enough;
but, alas, his lungs were ruined by the Russian climate, and he
did not arrive. Something pathetic still in those final LETTERS of
Suhm. Passionately speeding on, like a spent steed struggling
homeward; he has to pause at Warsaw, and in a few days dies
there,--in a way mournful to Friedrich and us! To Duhan, and
Duhan's children afterwards, he was punctually, not too lavishly,
attentive; in like manner to Suhm's Nephews, whom the dying man
had recommended to him.--We will now glance shortly at a second
and contemporaneous phasis of Friedrich's affairs.
INTENDS TO BE PRACTICAL WITHAL, AND EVERY INCH A KING.
Friedrich is far indeed from thinking to reduce his Army, as the
Foreign Editor imagines. On the contrary, he is, with all
industry, increasing it. He changed the Potsdam Giants into four
regiments of the usual stature; he is busy bargaining with his
Brother-in-law of Brunswick, and with other neighbors, for still
new regiments;--makes up, within the next few months, Eight
Regiments, an increase of, say, 16,000 men. It would appear he
means to keep an eye on the practicalities withal; means to have a
Fighting-Apparatus of the utmost potentiality, for one thing.!
Here are other indications.
We saw the Old Dessauer, in a sad hour lately, speaking beside the
mark; and with what Olympian glance, suddenly tearless, the new
King flashed out upon him, knowing nothing of "authority" that
could reside in any Dessauer. Nor was that a solitary experience;
the like befell wherever needed. Heinrich of Schwedt, the Ill
Margraf, advancing with jocose countenance in the way of old
comradeship, in those first days, met unexpected rebuff, and was
reduced to gravity on the sudden: "JETZT BIN ICH KONIG,--My
Cousin, I am now King!" a fact which the Ill Margraf could never
get forgotten again. Lieutenant-General Schulenburg, too, the
didactic Schulenburg, presuming, on old familiarity, and willing
to wipe out the misfortune of having once condemned us to death,
which nobody is now upbraiding him with, rushes up from Landsberg,
unbidden, to pay his congratulations and condolences, driven by
irresistible exuberance of loyalty: to his astonishment, he is
reminded (thing certain, manner of the thing not known), That an
Officer cannot quit his post without order; that he, at this
moment, ought to be in Landsberg! [Stenzel, iv. 41; Preuss,