History of Friedrich II of Prussia — Volume 06Carlyle, Thomas
History
History of Friedrich II of Prussia — Volume 06
Carlyle, Thomas
Frederick II, King of Prussia, 1712-1786; Prussia (Germany) -- History -- Frederick II, 1740-1786; Social problems
It is not certain that the late Imminency of Duel had much to do with
such explosions. The Hanover Imminency, which we likened to a tropical
waterspout, or sudden thunderous blotting-out of the sky to the
astonished Gazetteers, seems rather to have passed away as waterspouts
do,--leaving the earth and air, if anything, a little REFRESHED by
such crisis. Leaving, that is to say, the two Majesties a little less
disposed for open quarrel, or rash utterance of their ill humor in time
coming. But, in the mean while, all mutual interests are in a painful
state of suspended animation: in Berlin there is a privately rebellious
Spouse and Household, there is a Tobacco-Parliament withal;--and the
royal mind, sensitive, imaginative as a poet's, as a woman's, and liable
to transports as of a Norse Baresark, is of uncertain movement. Such a
load of intricacies and exaggerated anxieties hanging on it, the
royal mind goes like the most confused smoke-jack, sure only to HAVE
revolutions; and we know how, afar from Soissons, and at home in
Tobacco-Parliament, the machine is influenced! Enough, the explosive
procedures continue, and are on the increasing hand.
Majesty's hunting at Wusterhausen was hardly done, when that alarming
Treaty of Seville came to light (9th November, 1729), France and England
ranked by the side of Spain, disposing of Princes and Apanages at their
will, and a Kaiser left sitting solitary,--which awakens the domestic
whirlwinds at Berlin, among other results. "CANAILLE ANGLAISE, English
Doggery!" and similar fine epithets, addressed to Wilhelmina and the
Crown-Prince, fly about; not to speak of occasional crockery and
other missiles. Friedrich Wilhelm has forbidden these two his presence
altogether, except at dinner: Out of my sight, ye Canaille Anglaise;
darken not the sunlight for me at all!
This is in the Wusterhausen time,--Hanover Imminency only two months
gone. And Mamma sends for us to have private dialogues in her Apartment
there, with spies out in every direction to make signal of Majesty's
return from his hunt,--who, however, surprises as on one occasion, so
that we have to squat for hours, and almost get suffocated. [Wilhelmina,
i. 172.] Whereupon the Crown-Prince, who will be eighteen in a couple
of months, and feels the indignity of such things, begs of Mamma to be
excused in future. He has much to suffer from his Father again, writes
Dubourgay in the end of November: "it is difficult to conceive the vile
stratagems that are made use of to provoke the Father against the
Son." [Dubourgay, 28th November, 1729.] Or again, take this, as perhaps
marking an epoch in the business, a fortnight farther on:--
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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