History of Friedrich II of Prussia V 15 [38]
in the teeth of our express precept, had elected an Austrian to their benefice: what can one account it but an insult as well as an injury? And the neuralgic maladies press sore, and the gouty twinges; and Belleisle is seized, perhaps with important papers of ours; and the Seckendorf-Segur detachments were ill placed; nay here are the Austrians already on the throat of them, in midwinter! It is said, a babbling valet, or lord-in-waiting, happened to talk of some skirmish that had fallen out (called a battle, in the valet rumor), and how ill the French and Bavarians had fared in it, owing to their ill behavior. And this, add they, proved to be the ounce-weight too much for the so heavy-laden back.
"The Kaiser took to bed, not much complaining; patient, mild, though the saddest of all mortals; and, in a day or two, died. Adieu, adieu, ye loved faithful ones; pity me, and pray for me! He gave his Wife, poor little fat devout creature, and his poor Children (eldest lad, his Heir, only seventeen), a tender blessing; solemnly exhorted them, To eschew ambition, and be warned by his example;--to make their peace with Austria; and never, like him, try COM' E DURO CALLE, and what the charity of Christian Kings amounts to. This counsel, it is thought, the Empress Dowager zealously accedes to, and will impress upon her Son. That is the Austrian and Cause-of-Liberty account: King Friedrich, from the other side, has heard a directly opposite one. How the Kaiser, at the point of death, exhorted his son, 'Never forget the services which the King of France and the King of Prussia have done us, and do not repay them with ingratitude.' [ OEuvres de Frederic, iii. 92;--and see (PER CONTRA) in Adelung, iv. 314 A; in Coxe, &c.] The reader can choose which he will, or reject both into the region of the uncertain. 'Karl Albert's pious and affectionate demeanor drew tears from all eyes,' say the by- standers: 'the manner in which he took leave of his Empress would have melted a heart of stone.' He was in his forty-eighth year; he had been, of all men in his generation, the most conspicuously unhappy."
What a down-rush of confusion there ensued on this event, not to Bavaria alone, but to all the world, and to King Friedrich more than another, no reader can now take the pains of conceiving. The "Frankfurt Union," then, has gone to air! Here is now no "Kaiser to be delivered from oppression:" here is a new Kaiser to be elected,--"Grand-Duke Franz the man," cry the Pragmatic Potentates with exultation, "no Belleisle to disturb!"--and questions arise innumerable thereupon, Will France go into electioneering again? The new Kur-Baiern, only seventeen, poor child, cannot be set up as candidate. What will France do with HIM; what he with France? Whom can the French try as Candidate against the Grand-Duke? Kur-Sachsen, the Polish Majesty again? Belleisle himself must have paused uncertain over such a welter,--and probably have done, like the others, little or nothing in it, but left it to collapse by natural gravitation.
Hungarian Majesty checked her Bavarian Armaments a little: "If perhaps this young Kur-Baiern will detach himself from France, and on submissive terms come over to us?" Whereupon, at Munchen, and in the cognate quarters, such wriggling, dubitating and diplomatizing, as seldom was,--French, Anti-French (Seckendorf busiest of all), straining every nerve in that way, and for almost three months, nothing coming of it,--till Hungarian Majesty sent her Barenklaus and Bathyanis upon them again; and these rapidly solved the question, in what way we shall see!
Friedrich has still his hopes of Bavaria, so grandiloquent are the French in regard to it; who but would hope? The French diplomatize to all lengths in Munchen, promising seas and mountains; but they perform little; in an effectual manner, nothing. Bavarian "Army raised to 60,000;" counts in fact little above half that number; with no General to it but an imaginary one; Segur's actual French contingent, instead of 25,000, is perhaps 12,000;--and so of other things.
"The Kaiser took to bed, not much complaining; patient, mild, though the saddest of all mortals; and, in a day or two, died. Adieu, adieu, ye loved faithful ones; pity me, and pray for me! He gave his Wife, poor little fat devout creature, and his poor Children (eldest lad, his Heir, only seventeen), a tender blessing; solemnly exhorted them, To eschew ambition, and be warned by his example;--to make their peace with Austria; and never, like him, try COM' E DURO CALLE, and what the charity of Christian Kings amounts to. This counsel, it is thought, the Empress Dowager zealously accedes to, and will impress upon her Son. That is the Austrian and Cause-of-Liberty account: King Friedrich, from the other side, has heard a directly opposite one. How the Kaiser, at the point of death, exhorted his son, 'Never forget the services which the King of France and the King of Prussia have done us, and do not repay them with ingratitude.' [
What a down-rush of confusion there ensued on this event, not to Bavaria alone, but to all the world, and to King Friedrich more than another, no reader can now take the pains of conceiving. The "Frankfurt Union," then, has gone to air! Here is now no "Kaiser to be delivered from oppression:" here is a new Kaiser to be elected,--"Grand-Duke Franz the man," cry the Pragmatic Potentates with exultation, "no Belleisle to disturb!"--and questions arise innumerable thereupon, Will France go into electioneering again? The new Kur-Baiern, only seventeen, poor child, cannot be set up as candidate. What will France do with HIM; what he with France? Whom can the French try as Candidate against the Grand-Duke? Kur-Sachsen, the Polish Majesty again? Belleisle himself must have paused uncertain over such a welter,--and probably have done, like the others, little or nothing in it, but left it to collapse by natural gravitation.
Hungarian Majesty checked her Bavarian Armaments a little: "If perhaps this young Kur-Baiern will detach himself from France, and on submissive terms come over to us?" Whereupon, at Munchen, and in the cognate quarters, such wriggling, dubitating and diplomatizing, as seldom was,--French, Anti-French (Seckendorf busiest of all), straining every nerve in that way, and for almost three months, nothing coming of it,--till Hungarian Majesty sent her Barenklaus and Bathyanis upon them again; and these rapidly solved the question, in what way we shall see!
Friedrich has still his hopes of Bavaria, so grandiloquent are the French in regard to it; who but would hope? The French diplomatize to all lengths in Munchen, promising seas and mountains; but they perform little; in an effectual manner, nothing. Bavarian "Army raised to 60,000;" counts in fact little above half that number; with no General to it but an imaginary one; Segur's actual French contingent, instead of 25,000, is perhaps 12,000;--and so of other things.