Читать книгу History of Friedrich II of Prussia (All 21 Volumes) - Томас Карлейль - Страница 10

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Friedrich of Brandenburg-Hohenzollern, who came by course of natural succession to be Friedrich II. of Prussia, and is known in these ages as Frederick the Great, was born in the palace of Berlin, about noon, on the 24th of January, 1712. A small infant, but of great promise or possibility; and thrice and four times welcome to all sovereign and other persons in the Prussian Court, and Prussian realms, in those cold winter days. His Father, they say, was like to have stifled him with his caresses, so overjoyed was the man; or at least to have scorched him in the blaze of the fire; when happily some much suitabler female nurse snatched this little creature from the rough paternal paws—and saved it for the benefit of Prussia and mankind. If Heaven will but please to grant it length of life! For there have already been two little Princekins, who are both dead; this Friedrich is the fourth child; and only one little girl, wise Wilhelmina, of almost too sharp wits, and not too vivacious aspect, is otherwise yet here of royal progeny. It is feared the Hohenzollern lineage, which has flourished here with such beneficent effect for three centuries now, and been in truth the very making of the Prussian Nation, may be about to fail, or pass into some side branch. Which change, or any change in that respect, is questionable, and a thing desired by nobody.

Five years ago, on the death of the first little Prince, there had surmises risen, obscure rumors and hints, that the Princess Royal, mother of the lost baby, never would have healthy children, or even never have a child more: upon which, as there was but one other resource—a widowed Grandfather, namely, and except the Prince Royal no son to him—said Grandfather, still only about fifty, did take the necessary steps: but they have been entirely unsuccessful; no new son or child, only new affliction, new disaster has resulted from that third marriage of his. And though the Princess Royal has had another little Prince, that too has died within the year;—killed, some say on the other hand, by the noise of the cannon firing for joy over it! [Forster, Friedrich Wilhelm I., Konig von Preussen (Potsdam, 1834), i. 126 (who quotes Morgenstern, a contemporary reporter). But see also Preuss, Friedrich der Grosse mit seinen Verwandten und Freunden (Berlin, 1838), pp. 379–380] Yes; and the first baby Prince, these same parties farther say, was crushed to death by the weighty dress you put upon it at christening time, especially by the little crown it wore, which had left a visible black mark upon the poor soft infant's brow! In short, it is a questionable case; undoubtedly a questionable outlook for Prussian mankind; and the appearance of this little Prince, a third trump-card in the Hohenzollern game, is an unusually interesting event. The joy over him, not in Berlin Palace only, but in Berlin City, and over the Prussian Nation, was very great and universal;—still testified in manifold dull, unreadable old pamphlets, records official and volunteer—which were then all ablaze like the bonfires, and are now fallen dark enough, and hardly credible even to the fancy of this new Time.

The poor old Grandfather, Friedrich I. (the first King of Prussia)—for, as we intimate, he was still alive, and not very old, though now infirm enough, and laden beyond his strength with sad reminiscences, disappointments and chagrins—had taken much to Wilhelmina, as she tells us; [ Memoires de Frederique Sophie Wilhelmine de Prusse, Margrave de Bareith, Soeur d Frederic-le-Grand (London, 1812), i. 5.] and would amuse himself whole days with the pranks and prattle of the little child. Good old man: he, we need not doubt, brightened up into unusual vitality at sight of this invaluable little Brother of hers; through whom he can look once more into the waste dim future with a flicker of new hope. Poor old man: he got his own back half-broken by a careless nurse letting him fall; and has slightly stooped ever since, some fifty and odd years now: much against his will; for he would fain have been beautiful; and has struggled all his days, very hard if not very wisely, to make his existence beautiful—to make it magnificent at least, and regardless of expense;—and it threatens to come to little. Courage, poor Grandfather: here is a new second edition of a Friedrich, the first having gone off with so little effect: this one's back is still unbroken, his life's seedfield not yet filled with tares and thorns: who knows but Heaven will be kinder to this one? Heaven was much kinder to this one. Him Heaven had kneaded of more potent stuff: a mighty fellow this one, and a strange; related not only to the Upholsteries and Heralds' Colleges, but to the Sphere-harmonies and the divine and demonic powers; of a swift far-darting nature this one, like an Apollo clad in sunbeams and in lightnings (after his sort); and with a back which all the world could not succeed in breaking!—Yes, if, by most rare chance, this were indeed a new man of genius, born into the purblind rotting Century, in the acknowledged rank of a king there—man of genius, that is to say, man of originality and veracity; capable of seeing with his eyes, and incapable of not believing what he sees;—then truly!—But as yet none knows; the poor old Grandfather never knew.

Meanwhile they christened the little fellow, with immense magnificence and pomp of apparatus; Kaiser Karl, and the very Swiss Republic being there (by proxy), among the gossips; and spared no cannon-volleyings, kettle-drummings, metal crown, heavy cloth-of-silver, for the poor soft creature's sake; all of which, however, he survived. The name given him was Karl Friedrich (Charles Frederick); Karl perhaps, and perhaps also not, in delicate compliment to the chief gossip, the above-mentioned. Kaiser, Karl or Charles VI.? At any rate, the KARL, gradually or from the first, dropped altogether out of practice, and went as nothing: he himself, or those about him, never used it; nor, except in some dim English pamphlet here and there, have I met with any trace of it. Friedrich (RICH-in-PEACE, a name of old prevalence in the Hohenzollern kindred), which he himself wrote FREDERIC in his French way, and at last even FEDERIC (with a very singular sense of euphony), is throughout, and was, his sole designation. Sunday 31st January, 1712, age then precisely one week: then, and in this manner, was he ushered on the scene, and labelled among his fellow-creatures. We must now look round a little; and see, if possible by any method or exertion, what kind of scene it was.