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a narrower space than has been usual with great commanders. We do not think that any of his battles was fought at more than 250 miles' distance from Berlin.

In August, 1740, however, only a few weeks after his accession, Frederick undertook a short excursion to Alsace. He travelled with a small retinue, and a strict incognito, under the name of Comte Dufour. One of his objects on his way back was to visit his outlying dominion of Cleves; another to see Voltaire, with whom he had for some years been in correspondence, but whom he had never yet

met.

Of this journey Frederick himself wrote a humorous account, part in prose and part in verse, on the model of the celebrated piece by La Chapelle and Bachaumont. The whole of it has been published, but it is best known from the extracts given by Voltaire in that most malignant piece of biography first printed as "Vie privée du Roi de Prusse," and since as "Mémoires" in the first volume of Voltaire's collected works. The verses are, no doubt, extremely poor, and interesting only from the subsequent renown of the writer. Thus at the outset we find Frederick complain of the scanty fare at a village inn, and still more of the exorbitant charges.

Car des hôtes intéressés,

De la faim nous voyant pressés,
D'une façon plus que frugale,
Dans une chaumière infernale,
En nous empoisonnant, nous volaient nos écus.
O siècle différent des temps de Lucullus!

At the gates of Strasburg, however, there are still deeper murmurs at the grasping propensities of the customhouse officers.

Ces scélérats nous épiaient,
D'un œil le passe-port lisaient,
De l'autre lorgnaient notre bourse.
L'or, qui toujours fut de ressource,
Par lequel Jupin jouissait
De Danaé qu'il caressait;
L'or, par qui César gouvernait
Le monde heureux sous son empire;
L'or, plus Dieu que Mars et l'Amour,
Le même or sut nous introduire,
Le soir, dans les murs de Strasbourg.

At Strasburg Frederick took up his quarters at a little inn-l'Hôtel du Corbeau and through the mediation of his landlord made acquaintance the same day with three or four French officers, whom he asked to supper. They were greatly pleased with the wit and lively conversation both of the King himself and of the Italian Count Algarotti, who was one of his train; and they returned his invitation for the ensuing day. As Comte Dufour he passed for a Grand Seigneur of Bohemia. He was presented next morning to the Maréchal de Broglie, Governor of Strasburg; and in the evening went to the play with Madame la Maréchale. But by this time the secret of his rank was rapidly becoming le secret de la comédie. It was revealed to the Maréchal himself by a soldier of the garrison, who had not long since deserted from the Prussian service. The Maréchal, it is said, was so incautious after dinner as to begin a sentence with Sire—and then, suddenly correcting himself, go on, Monsieur le Baron. Frederick afterwards observed, and with good reason, that the Maréchal had been much to blame; "he ought either," he said, “to have carefully preserved my incognito or else paid me the honours that were due to my rank."*

Even at the time the displeasure of Frederick peeps forth in his poetical "Récit de Voyage," as where he bids us not rely too much on the Maréchal's wise looks:

Il était né pour la surprise;

Ses cheveux blancs, sa barbe grise
Formaient un sage extérieur.
Le dehors est souvent trompeur;
Qui juge par la reliure

D'un ouvrage et de son auteur
Dans une page de lecture
Peut reconnaître son erreur.

Be this as it may, Frederick, perceiving that his secret was no longer safe, made a hasty exit from the theatre, and set off that same night for the Duchy of Cleves. There he at once resumed his Royal state and his Royal cares. In pursuance of some ancient claims, and by the timely advance of a few battalions, he extorted a million of francs from the Prince Bishop of Liége. He insisted that the

ducats; and this, as Voltaire satirically notes, served to indemnify him for the losses which he had lately sustained at the Strasburg custom-house.

Voltaire, who has transcribed this pas-money should be paid down in gold sage, adds to it this bitter comment: "It will be seen by these lines that Frederick had not yet become the greatest of our poets; and that philosopher as he was, he did not regard with any indifference the metal of which his father had accumulated such ample stores."

*"Souvenirs de Thiebault," vol i. p. 212. Mr. Car lyle adopts a different version.

As regards their legislation, the preceding judgment might, perhaps, be reversed, and the superiority be assigned to the Suabian. He of Prussia had, no doubt, great merits in this matter also. There is still standing at Sans Souci, as a monument of his impartial justice, the unsightly mill which he wished to purchase, and which the miller refused to part with, appealing to the protection of the law. The "Code Frédéric," also, may deserve some part, at least, of the high praise which the French philosophers gave it. But we do not find that Frederick ever shewed any real disposition to limit, even in the smallest degree, his own absolute power in State affairs. We do not find that he took any steps to enfranchise the peasantry, who, at the period of his death, continued serfs and bound to the soil in many parts of his dominions. The extent of his shortcomings may best be estimated from a view of the vast reforms which it was left to Baron Stein to inaugurate in 1807.

Compared as chiefs of armies, the older | But still, after every possible drawback, Frederick can bear no parallel with the there will remain as balance an extraordilater. Frederick of Suabia had, indeed, nary amount of the highest military qualigreat personal courage, a cheerful endur- ties which throughout this memorable ance of toil, and, in military skill, was conflict the Great King displayed. probably not inferior to any leader of armies of that age. He had, also, great ardour of purpose. Thus, on one occasion, when he was informed that the people of Viterbo had rebelled against him, he was heard to exclaim, "Even if I had already one foot in Paradise, I would pull it back again to punish these ungrateful men!" But his success was not commensurate with his ardour or his bravery. He failed in that very siege of Viterbo; he failed in another still more memorable at Bologna. He was put to the rout at that fortified encampment to which he had given, far too prematurely, the proud name of Vittoria. Frederick of Prussia, on the other hand, ranks, and deserves to rank, with the greatest captains whom the world has ever seen — with Hannibal and Cæsar, with Marlborough and Turenne. There is nothing in all history more wonderful than the Seven Years' War. Here were the three greatest monarchies of Continental Europe France, Austria, Russia-drawing in their train not only Sweden, but also the main States of the Germanic Empire, and arrayed in arms Reverting to the Emperor Frederick, against the single "Marquis de Brande- we may say of him with Dr. Milman that bourg," as at this time the French officers" as a legislator he commands almost unwould scornfully call him. It was a mingled admiration.' It is truly surleague of eighty millions of men against prising to see how far on many points he but six or seven millions. With such a was in advance of his age. Was it not, disparity of forces it might have been ex- for example, until quite lately held as an pected that one campaign, or even one axiom in finance that trade is beneficial. battle, would decide the war. Far other to a nation only when its exports are wise was the result. Frederick was fre- greater than its imports? We find Fredquently defeated, but never subdued. He erick, on the contrary, declare as his held, or he recovered, his own, with in- opinion that trade is beneficial to both domitable energy; and at last, instead of nations that engage in it. Again, how the dismemberment of his States, which few years have passed, comparatively had been contemplated, he concluded speaking, since there was a line of cuspeace without the cession of even a single tom-houses to divide, for example, Ireland village to his foes. from Great Britain, and Biscay from CasIt is true that this general statement tile? Frederick, on the contrary, lays it should not be too absolutely taken. For down as his rule that within the limits of Frederick there were some gleams of the same dominion commerce should be light in the dark picture. There was the constant alliance and the yearly subsidy of England. There was the Czarina's sudden death, and her successor's favourable disposition. Other such retrieving circumstances might be mentioned.

This is Dr. Vehse's computation, Lord Macaulay

has rather magnified the difference, making the numbers in the one case a hundred millions, and in the other "not five millions." ("Essays," vol. iv. p. 60, ed. 1866.)

absolutely free. Thus, on one occasion, when the governor of a district in Sicily attempted to prohibit the import of provisions across the river Salso, the Emperor sternly rebuked him. "Remember," said Frederick, "that though there may be separate jurisdictions, it is all one empire; and that its people must not be

"Latin Christianity," vol. iv. p. 358.

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suffered to act as strangers, far less as may seem, these decrees of Frederick enemies, to one another." were rather in mitigation of those that had been issued before him. There was, above all, this important provision - the final decision was not to rest with the vengeful ecclesiastical courts, but after due investigation by these each case was to be adjudged by the secular authority.

Equality before the law: such was the maxim of the Suabian sovereign no less than of the Prussian, five centuries later. With this view the Emperor abrogated where he could, and, where he could not, restrained and curtailed, the claim of the nobles and clergy to hold themselves ex- The subject of religious toleration may empt from the duties that devolved on invite some remarks on the personal other classes. It was their privilege. creed of either Sovereign. As to Fredby right of conquest, said the Norman erick of Prussia, there is no room for Barons; by God's appointment, said the doubt or question. He adhered in the Romish Bishops not to be liable to most open manner to the school of the trial by the ordinary tribunals, nor to con- philosophers, as they called themselves tribution in taxes to the exigencies of the in France. Like the great object of his State. Against these odious pretensions admiration, Voltaire, he would often make - which, as is well known, maintained the Christian religion the topic for his their ground in France, for example, un- biting jests. He loved especially to quote til the commencement of the French and misapply some text of Scripture. Revolution Frederick was constantly This one or two instances will shew. contending. Nor would he allow the common man to be oppressed. It serves to shew the temper of those times that he found it requisite to issue an edict forbidding, as though a common practice, that a feudal lord might cudgel the vassals of another if his own vassals had in the first instance been cudgelled by that other lord. * In this case, as in many others, Frederick did his utmost to mitigate and lessen the curse of serfdom as it existed on the estates of the prelates and barons; and he abolished it altogether in the domains belonging to the Crown.

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It appears then that, on one occasion, Frederick found fault with the façade of a church of Potsdam, and he caused it to be altered, by which process, however, some windows were shut up. The clergyman and congregation made remonstran ces, declaring that they could not see. But they were silenced by the text which Frederick alleged: "Blessed are they that have not seen and yet have believed." Thus, again, in the Seven Years' War, the Prussian horsemen of Natzmer, wearing as part of their uniform a white fur jacket, were derided on that account by their antagonists, the Austrian cavalry of General Putkammer, being called "the Berlin sheep." Great resentment was felt by them at this insulting nickname, insomuch that, having in a battle put the Putkammer regiment to the rout, they shewed it little quarter in their pursuit, and fiercely cut it down. The Austrian General, who was one of the few prisoners, complained to Frederick of the treatment they had received. "But have you read the Bible?" asked Frederick. Certainly I have, Sire."-"Well, if so, you must have found a sentence which explains the whole case." "What sentence can that be, Sire? "Beware of those which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves."

Religious toleration was the rule of both the Fredericks, but toleration is far less worthy of note in the eighteenth century, when it became the common practice, than in the thirteenth, when it appeared a strange portent to the people. A godless policy the priests pronounced it. They viewed with indignation the liberty of conscience which Frederick allowed alike to the Jew in the commercial cities, to the Saracen on the hills of Sicily, and to the Greek upon the eastern coasts." But they found some consolation in the rigour of the edicts against the Lombard Paterini," for so these precursors of the Reformation were at that time termed. No severity was deemed too great for them. The obstinate heretic was to be burned alive, and his whole property confiscated. It was declared penal even to petition in his favour. Yet strange as it

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It was otherwise with the Suabian. No doubt that he also was frequently charged with irreligion. At other times, again, his ecclesiastical enemies, seeing his forbearance to the Jew and the Mahometan in his dominions, were wont to brand him with those opprobrious names, sometimes with either singly, sometimes with both

together. But Frederick himself, while he disdained the taunt, repelled the charge. He always declared himself a firm believer in the Christian faith, resisting only, as he said the usurpations, spiritual and temporal, of the See of Rome. Some of the sayings ascribed to him are not quite reverent; as when he exclaimed that, if God had borne in mind the beautiful island of Sicily, He would never have assigned the barren country of Judæa to his chosen people. Something, however, must be allowed to the temper of that and the ensuing age. The reader of Chaucer, for example, may recollect some passages in which sacred names are used in most unfit collocation, though, as it would seem, without any scoffing idea.

It may be added that, whenever we come to specific charges, some of those urged against Frederick are almost demonstrably false. Thus it was alleged that, at his instigation, his Chancellor and favourite, Peter de Vineâ, had composed a sceptical treatise against the principal religions known or professed in the world. It was said to be entitled De Tribus Impostoribus, meaning Moses, Christ, and Mahomet. This book was much talked of, and yet never seen; and modern research appears to have clearly shewn that, in fact, it never existed.

exploded, might have been thought beyond their influence. It is, therefore, with some surprise that we find him in the Seven Years' War carefully collecting the predictions of the countryside conjurors (les devins de village) and expressing his disappointment that he learnt so little from them. He had also his lucky and unlucky days. "Do not," he said once to the Prince of Orange, "choose Monday for your marriage with my niece; let it be either Sunday or Tuesday. Monday is not fortunate for us; at least I never won a battle on that day."

The two blots in the character of the Suabian Frederick were, first, his indulgence in illicit amours (of which his accomplished son, King Enzio, was, among others, a living token) and secondly, his cruel treatment of public offenders. On some occasions, as was said, he had punished men guilty of high-treason by wrapping them up in lead and casting them into a red-hot furnace. It is to this that Dante alludes when he speaks of the hypocrites weighed down by gilded robes, so heavy that the Emperor's were trifling in comparison :

Ma dentro tutte piombo, e gravi tanto
Che Federigo le mettea di paglia.*

We hear also of summary executions in It is worthy of note that, while a disbe- the case of towns stormed or troops surlief in Revealed Religion was with more rendered. It is only right, however, to or less justice imputed to both the Fred-bear in mind what was the usual practice ericks, each lent a ready ear to the pre- in that age. Cruelty was the rule, humandictions of conjurors and fortune-tellers. ity, the rare exception. As the first inIt had been foretold to the Suabian that stance of the former that just now occurs he would die in the midst of flowers; and to us we may mention the "dark Knight for this reason he would never set foot of Liddesdale," as Sir Walter Scott has within the walls of Florence. But he did termed him, who, taking prisoner Sir Alnot thereby escape his doom. In the exander Ramsey, the gallant ancestor of year 1250, while journeying in Northern the Dalhousies, flung him into a dungeon Apulia, he was seized with sudden dysen- of Hermitage Castle, and left him there tery at the small town of Castel Fioren- to perish of cold and hunger. But such tino, and there, after a few days' illness, breathed his last. On an earlier occasion, at Vicenza, a conjuror boasted that he would place in the hands of Frederick a sealed paper, naming the very gate by which he would depart from the city on the morrow. Frederick took the paper, but, resolving to disappoint the wizard, caused a breach to be made in the city walls, and by this he issued forth. Then, breaking the seal, he read to his surprise, "The Emperor will leave the city by the

New Gate-the Porta Nuova."

Frederick of Prussia, coming five centuries later, in an age when among all civilized nations fancies of this kind were

barbarous customs, although some palliation for the conduct of Frederick, by no means afford an adequate defence in the case of a prince so enlightened and accomplished, and so greatly on most other points beyond the temper of his times.

Frederick of Prussia, on the contrary, was not indeed humane, in the sense of having any great sympathy with his fellow-men. He gave a parting token of his disdain for them by desiring to be buried on the terrace of Sans Souci by the side of his favourite greyhounds. But, though harsh, he was by no means cruel. His

"Inferno," cant. xxiii. vers. 65.

which had been taken by an antiquary, Signor Daniele of Naples, has also disappeared, and there remains only a seal-ring engraved with the profile taken from it. Of that profile a print has been given by Raumer in the earlier and larger editions of his "History." It shows regular and very handsome features, not unlike those of Augustus, with whose coins, indeed, those of Frederick have been sometimes in ignorance confounded.

tendency was rather to lessen than to aggravate any penal sentence. Even in the punishments which he inflicted there not unfrequently mingled some touch of raillery or humour. Of this one instance may be perhaps allowed us. He had in his service several Kammerhusaren, as the Germans called them, or, as the French might have said, sous-valets de chambre. One of these men, then with his Majesty at Sans Souci, accidentally let fall a letter which he had written to his sweetheart at Frederick of Prussia is said to have Berlin, and that letter was picked up by been beautiful as a child, but lines of care the King. It ran as follows: "My dear and thought were early graven on his Charlotte, I fear that I shall not find it brow. He was at all times unwilling to possible to call on you to-day, nor yet for spare the time of sitting for his likeness, some days to come, for I must stay at but there is a good engraving of him from home in close attendance on the growling a picture by Pesne soon after his accesold bear" (Brummbär). Frederick was by sion to the throne. To the last he was no means pleased at finding himself thus remarkable for the power and piercing designated. But, sending for the Kam- lustre of his eyes. "They are too hard in merhusar, he calmly asked him whether his portraits," says the Prince de Ligne, he knew how to write. "A little," said the "and they had been much tried by his laman. "Then sit down at that table," said bours both in council and the field, but Frederick, "and write what I shall dic- they were wont to soften and beam brighttate." His Majesty then began dictating, ly, whenever he listened to or related word for word, the intercepted letter. quelque trait d'élévation.” De Ligne, AusThe Kammerhusar, perceiving what had trian as he was, adds in his enthusiasm, happened, fell on his knees, and implored" I shall never believe that there could be forgiveness. Sit down again," said the eclipses and earthquakes to signalize the King, "and go on writing as I bid you." death of Cæsar, since there were none And the King then further dictated as at the death of Frederick the Great." follows: "My dear Charlotte, it is now most probable that several weeks may Both the Emperor and the King were elapse before I have the happiness of see-fond of building. Berlin owes to her ing you, since the growling old bear has Frederick no small proportion of her orjust signed a warrant sending me a pris-naments, as, for example, her excellent oner to Spandau." To Spandau the valet was sent accordingly. But he was not left there more than a few days.

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Frederick of Suabia had great advantages of person. Malespini, a writer of some note, says of his son Manfred, "bello era come il padre;" and if we admit the likeness, Dante also becomes a witness to the beauty, when in the "Purgatorio" the shade of Manfred appears:

Biondo era e bello e di gentile aspetto.* Nor are we to attach undue weight to the few lines of disparaging description from the Imaum of the Mosque of Omar. The hair of Frederick, which might seem red to the swarthy Asiatic, was, in truth, of the beautiful German blond. There was a statue of him, erected in his lifetime on the bridge at Capua, but it is said to have been destroyed or mutilated in the wars of the last century. A cast of the head

* "Purgatorio," lib. iii. vers. 106.

Public Library. At Potsdam are the two palaces which he reared, the Sans Souci and the Neue Palais, besides his decorations in the more ancient Residenz. Strangers are now admitted to walk through the apartments which he dwelt in, and which remain nearly in the same state in which he left them. There are still the chairs and the sofa which he used, the silken covers half torn off by the pawing of his greyhounds, and marked by the stains of the plates from which they were fed. There are also the vast conservatories and hothouses which he had constructed for the rearing of exotic plants. Once, in the same conversation with the Prince de Ligne from which we have already quoted, Frederick complained how ill he had succeeded - how frequently his orange and his olive trees had pined away in that ungenial climate and as ungenial soil. "It seems then," replied the ready-witted courtier, "that nothing thrives here except the laurel!"

Frederick of Suabia in like manner

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