What the young Crown-Prince did, said, thought, in such environment, of backstairs diplomacies, female sighs and aspirations, Grumkow duels, drillings in the Giant Regiment, is not specified for us in the smallest particular, in the extensive rubbish-books that have been written about him. Ours is, to indicate that such environment was: how a lively soul, acted on by it, did not fail to react, chameleon-like taking color from it, and contrariwise taking color against it, must be left to the reader's imagination--One thing we have gathered and will not forget, That the Old Dessauer is out, and Grumkow in, that the rugged Son of Gunpowder, drilling men henceforth at Halle, and in a dumb way meditating tactics as few ever did, has no share in the foul enchantments that now supervene at court.
Chapter VI.
ORDNANCE-MASTER SECKENDORF CROSSES THE PALACE ESPLANADE.
The Kaiser's terror and embarrassment at the conclusion of the Hanover Treaty, as we saw, were extreme. War possible or likely;and nothing but the termagant caprices of Elizabeth Farnese to depend on: no cash from the Sea-Powers; only cannonshot, invasion and hostility, from their cash and them: What is to be done?
To "caress the pride of Spain;" to keep alive the hopes, in that quarter, of marrying their Don Carlos, the supplementary Infant, to our eldest Archduchess; which indeed has set the Sea-Powers dreadfully on fire, but which does leave Parma and Piacenza quiet for the present, and makes the Pragmatic Sanction too an affair of Spain's own: this is one resource, though a poor one, and a dangerous. Another is, to make alliance with Russia, by well flattering the poor little brown Czarina there: but is not that a still poorer? And what third is there!--There is a third worth both the others, could it be got done:
To detach Friedrich Wilhelm from those dangerous Hanover Confederates, and bring him gently over to ourselves. He has an army of 60,000, in perfect equipment, and money to maintain them so. Against us or for us,--60,000 PLUS or 60,000 MINUS;--that will mean 120,000 fighting men; a most weighty item in any field there is like to be. If it lie in the power of human art, let us gain this wild irritated King of Prussia. Dare any henchman of ours venture to go, with honey-cakes, with pattings and cajoleries, and slip the imperial muzzle well round the snout of that rugged ursine animal? An iracund bear, of dangerous proportions, and justly irritated against us at present? Our experienced FELDZEUGMEISTER, Ordnance-Master and Diplomatist, Graf von Seckendorf, a conscientious Protestant, and the cunningest of men, able to lie to all lengths,--dare he try it? He has fought in all quarters of the world; and lied in all, where needful; and saved money in all: he will try it, and will succeed in it too!
[Pollnitz, ii. 235; Stenzel, iii. 544; Forster, ii. 59, iii. 235, 239.]
The Second Act, therefore, of this foolish World-Drama of the Double-Marriage opens,--on the 11th May, 1726, towards sunset, in the TABAGIE of the Berlin Palace, as we gather from laborious comparison of windy Pollnitz with other indistinct witnesses of a dreary nature,--in the following manner:--Prussian Majesty sits smoking at the window; nothing particular going on. A square-built shortish steel-gray Gentleman, of military cut, past fifty, is strolling over the SCHLOSSPLATZ(spacious Square in front of the Palace), conspicuous amid the sparse populations there; pensively recreating himself, in the yellow sunlight and long shadows, as after a day's hard labor or travel. "Who is that?" inquires Friedrich Wilhelm, suspending his tobacco. Grumkow answers cautiously, after survey: He thinks it must be Ordnance-Master Seckendorf; who was with him to-day;passing on rapidly towards Denmark, on business that will not wait.--"Experienced Feldzeugmeister Graf von Seckendorf, whom we stand in correspondence with, of late, and were expecting about this time? Whom we have known at the Siege of Stralsund, nay ever since the Marlborough times and the Siege of Menin, in war and peace; and have always reckoned a solid reasonable man and soldier: Why has he not come to us?"--"Your Majesty," confesses Grumkow, "his business is so pressing! Business in Denmark will not wait. Seckendorf owned he had come slightly round, in his eagerness to see our grand Review at Tempelhof the day after to-morrow: What soldier would omit the sight (so he was pleased to intimate) of soldiering carried to the non-plus-ultra? But he hoped to do it quite incognito, among the general public;--and then to be at the gallop again: not able to have the honor of paying his court at this time."--"Court? NARREN-POSSEN(Nonsense)!" answers Friedrich Wilhelm,--and opening the window, beckons Seckendorf up, with his own royal head and hand.
The conversation of a man who had rational sense, and could tell him anything, were it only news af foreign parts in a rational manner, was always welcome to Friedrich Wilhelm.
And so Seckendorf, how can he help it, is installed in the Tabagie; glides into pleasant conversation there. A captivating talker; solid for religion, for the rights of Germany against intrusive French and others: such insight, orthodoxy, sense and ingenuity; pleasant to hear; and all with the due quantity of oil, though he "both snuffles and lisps;" and has privately, in case of need, a capacity of lying,--for he curiously distils you any lie, in his religious alembics, till it become tolerable to his conscience, or even palatable, as elixirs are;--capacity of double-distilled lying probably the greatest of his day.--Seckendorf assists at the grand Review, 13th May, 1726; witnesses with unfeigned admiration the non-plus-ultra of manoeuvring, and, in fact, the general management, military and other, of this admirable King. [Pollnitz, ii. 235; Fassmann, pp. 367, 368.]
