But the worst between these two High Gentlemen is that Julich-and-Berg controversy; which is a sore still running, and beyond reach of probable surgery. Old Karl Philip has no male Heir; and is like to be (what he indeed proved) the last of the NEUBERG Electors Palatine. What trouble there rose with the first of them, about that sad business; and how the then Brandenburger, much wrought upon, smote the then Neuburger across the very face, and drove him into Catholicism, we have not forgotten; how can we ever?--It is one hundred and sixteen years since that after-dinner scene; and, O Heavens, what bickering and brabbling and confused negotiation there has been; lawyers' pens going almost continually ever since, shadowing out the mutual darkness of sovereignties;and from time to time the military implements brandishing themselves, though loath generally to draw blood! For a hundred and sixteen years:--but the Final Bargain, lying on parchment in the archives of both parties, and always acknowledged as final, was to this effect: "You serene Neuburg keep what you have got;we serene Brandenburg the like: Cleve with detached pertinents ours; Julich-and-Berg mainly yours. And let us live in perpetual amity on that footing. And, note only furthermore, when our Line fails, the whole of these fine Duchies shall be yours: if your Line fail, ours." That was the plain bargain, done solemnly in 1624, and again more solemnly and brought to parchment with signature in 1666, as Friedrich Wilhelm knows too well. And now the very case is about to occur; this old man, childless at seventy, is the last of the Neuburgs. May not one reasonably pretend that a bargain should be kept?
"Tush," answers old Karl Philip always: "Bargain?" And will not hear reason against himself on the subject; not even when the Kaiser asks him,--as the Kaiser really did, after that Wusterhausen Treaty, but could get only negatives. Karl Philip has no romantic ideas of justice, or of old parchments tying up a man.
Karl Philip had one Daughter by that dear Radzivil Princess, Sobieski's stolen Bride; and he never, by the dear Radzivil or her dear successor, [See Buchholz, i. 61 n.] had any son, or other daughter that lived to wed. One Daughter, we say; a first-born, extremely precious to him. Her he married to the young fortunate Sulzbach Cousin, Karl Joseph Heir-Apparent of Sulzbach, who, by all laws, was to succeed in the Pfalz as well,--Karl Philip thinking furthermore, "He and she, please Heaven, shall hold fast by Dusseldorf too, and that fine Julich-and-Berg Territory, which is mine. Bargains?" Such was, and is, the old man's inflexible notion. Alas, this one Daughter died lately, and her Husband lately; [She in 1728; he in 1729: their eldest Daughter was born 1721 (Hubner, t. 140; Michaelis, ii. 101, 123).] again leaving only Daughters; will not this change the notion? Not a whit,--though Friedrich Wilhelm may have fondly hoped it by possibility might, Not a whit: Karl Philip cherishes his little Grand-daughter, now a child of nine, as he did her Mother and her Mother's Mother; hopes one day to see her wedded (as he did) to a new Heir-Apparent of the Pfalz and Sulzbach; and, for her behoof, will hold fast by Berg and Julich, and part with no square inch of it for any parchment.
What is Friedrich Wilhelm to do? Seek justice for himself by his 80,000 men and the iron ramrods? Apparently he will not get it otherwise. He is loath to begin that terrible game. If indeed Europe do take fire, as is likely at Seville or elsewhere--But in the meanwhile how happy if negotiation would but serve! Alas, and if the Kaiser, England; Holland and the others, could be brought to guarantee me,--as indeed they should (to avoid a CASUS BELLI), and some of them have said they will! Friedrich Wilhelm tried this Julich-and-Berg Problem by the pacific method, all his life;strenuously, and without effect. Result perhaps was coming nevertheless; at the distance of another hundred years!--One thing I know: whatever rectitude and patience, whatever courage, perseverance, or other human virtue he has put into this or another matter, is not lost; not it nor any fraction of it, to Friedrich Wilhelm and his sons' sons; but will well avail him and them, if not soon, then later, if not in Berg and Julich, then in some other quarter of the Universe, which is a wide Entity and a long-lived! Courage, your Majesty!
So stand matters as Friedrich Wilhelm journeys towards Mannheim:
human politeness will have to cloak well, and keep well down, a good many prickly points in the visit ahead. Alas, poor Friedrich Wilhelm has got other matter to think of, by the time we arrive in Mannheim.
CATASTROPHE ON JOURNEY HOMEWARDS.
The Royal Party, quitting Ludwigsburg,--on Thursday, 3d August, 1730, some hours after dinner, as I calculate it,--had but a rather short journey before them: journey to a place called Sinzheim, some fifty or sixty miles; a long way short of Heidelberg; the King's purpose being to lodge in that dilapidated silent Town of Sinzheim, and leave both Heidelberg and Mannheim, with their civic noises, for the next day's work. Sinzheim, such was the program, as the Prince and others understood it; but by some accident, or on better calculation, it was otherwise decided in the royal mind: not at Sinzheim, intricate decayed old Town, shall we lodge to-night, but five or six miles short of it, in the naturally silent Village of Steinfurth, where good clean empty Barns are to be found. Which latter is a favorite method of his Majesty, fond always of free air and the absence of fuss.
