A busy week for the Crown-Prince and Katte, this of the Hotham Catastrophe; who have many consultations, the Journey to Anspach being on Saturday next! Crown-Prince has given him in keeping a writing-case with private letters; 1,000 ducats of money, money raised by loan, by picking jewels off some miniatures of honor, and the like sore methods. Katte has his very coat, a gray top-coat or travelling roquelaure, in keeping;--and their schemes are many. Off we must and will be, by some opportunity. Could not Katte get a "Recruiting Furlough," leave to go into the REICH on that score; and join one there? Lieutenant Keith is at Wesel;ready, always ready. Into France, into Holland, England? If the English would not,--there is war to be in Italy, say all the Newspapers: why not a campaign as Volunteers in Italy, till we saw how matters went? Anything and all things are preferable to ignominy like this. No dog could, endure it!
Chapter V.
JOURNEY TO THE REICH.
On Saturday the 15th July, 1730, early in the morning as his wont was, Friedrich Wilhelm, with a small train of official military persons, rolled off from Potsdam, towards Leipzig, on that same journey of his, towards Anspach and the Reich. To Anspach, to see our poor young daughter, lately married there; therefrom we can have a run into the Reich, according to circumstances. In this wide route there lie many Courts and scenes, which it might behoove us to look into; Courts needing to be encouraged to stand for the Kaiser's rights, against those English, French and intrusive Foreigners of the Seville Treaty. We may hope at least to ease our own heavy mind, and have the chaff somewhat blown out of it, by this rushing through the open atmosphere.--Such, so far as I can gather, were Friedrich Wilhelm's objects in this Journey;which turned out to be a more celebrated one than he expected.
The authentic records of it are slight, the rumors about it have been many. [Forster (iii. 1-11) contains Seckendorf's Narrative, as sent to Vienna; Preuss (iv. 470), a Prussian RELATIO EX ACTIS:
these are the only two ORIGINAL pieces which I have seen;Excerpts of others (correct doubtlees, but not in a very distinct condition) occur in Ranke, i. 294-340.] After painful sifting through mountains of dust and ashes for a poor cinder of a fact here and there, our duty is, to tell the English reader one good time, what certainties, or available cinders, have anywhere turned up. Crown-Prince Friedrich, it has been decided, after some consultation, shall go with his Majesty. Better he go with us, to be under our own eyes, lest he run away, or do other mischief.
Old General Buddenbrock, old Colonel Waldau, and Lieutenant-Colonel Rochow travel in the same carriage with the Prince; are to keep a strict watch over him, one of them at least to be always by him. Old General Buddenbrock, a grim but human old military gentleman, who has been in all manner of wars: he fought at Steenkirk even, and in the Siege of Namur, under Dutch William;stood, through Malplaquet and much else, under Marlborough;did the Siege of Stralsund too, and descent on Rugen there, which was not his first acquaintance with Karl of Sweden; and is a favorite old friend of Friedrich Wilhelm's. A good old gentleman, though very strict; now hard on sixty. He is chief of the Three.
Old Waldau, not younger, though still only Colonel of Horse, likewise celebrates the Malplaquet anniversary; a Pomeranian man, and silent smoker in the Tabagie, well seen by the master there.
To these two elderly authorities, Lieutenant-Colonel Rochow, still only about forty, and probably sharper of eye, is adjoined as active partner. I conclude, the Prince and Buddenbrock ride face forward; Buddenbrock can tell him about so many things, if he is conversable: about Dutch William; about Charles XII., whose Polish fights he witnessed, as an envoy from Berlin, long ago. A Colonel Krocher, I find, is general manager of the Journey;--and it does not escape notice that Friedrich, probably out of youthful curiosity, seems always very anxious to know, to the uttermost settled point, where our future stages are to be. His Royal Highness laid in a fair stock of District Maps, especially of the Rhine Countries, at Leipzig, too; [Forster, iii. 2.] and is assiduous in studying them,--evidently very desirous to know the face of Germany, the Rhine Countries in particular?
Potsdam, Wittenberg, Leipzig, the wheels rush rapidly on, stage succeeding stage; and early in the afternoon we are at Leipzig,--never looking out at Luther's vestiges, or Karl V.'s, or thinking about Luther, which thou and I, good English reader, would surely have done, in crossing Wittenberg and the birthplace of Protestantism. At Leipzig we were thinking to have dined. At the Peter's Gate there,--where at least fresh horses are, and a topographic Crown-Prince can send hastily to buy maps,--a General Hopfgarten, Commandant of the Town, is out with the military honors; he has, as we privately know, an excellent dinner ready in the Pleissenburg Fortress yonder, [Fassmann, p. 410.]--but he compliments to a dreadful extent! Harangues and compliments in no end of florid inflated tautologic ornamental balderdash;repeating and again repeating, What a never-imagined honor it is;in particular saying three times over, How the Majesty of Saxony, King August, had he known, would have wished for wings to fly hither; and bowing to the very ground, "as if, in the Polish manner, he wished to clasp your feet," said Friedrich Wilhelm afterwards. I can fancy Friedrich Wilhelm somewhat startled!