BOOK VII.

FEARFUL SHIPWRECK OF THE DOUBLE MARRIAGE PROJECT.

February-November, 1730.

CHAPTER I.

ENGLAND SENDS THE EXCELLENCY HOTHAM TO BERLIN.

THINGS, therefore, are got to a dead lock at Berlin: rebellious Womankind peremptorily refuse Weissenfels, and take to a bed of sickness; inexpugnable there for the moment. Baireuth is but a weak middle term, and there are disagreements on it. Answer from England, affirmative or even negative, we have yet none. Promptly affirmative, that might still avail, and be an honorable outcome. Perhaps better pause till that arrive and declare itself? Friedrich Wilhelm knows nothing of the Villa mission, of the urgencies that have been used in England; but, in present circumstances, he can pause for their answer.

Majesty, and Crown-Prince with him, make a run to Dresden.

To outward appearance, Friedrich Wilhelm, having written that message to Baireuth, seems easier in mind; quiet with the Queen, though dangerous for exploding if Wilhelmina and the Prince come in view. Wilhelmina mostly squats; Prince, who has to be in view, gets slaps and strokes "daily (journellement)," says the Princess-or almost daily. For the rest, it is evident enough, Weissenfels, if not got passed through the Female Parliament, is thrown out on the second reading, and so is at least finished. Ought we not to make a run to Dresden, therefore, and apprise the Polish Majesty?

Short run to Dresden is appointed for February 18th,' and the Prince Royal, perhaps suspected of meditating something, and safer in his Father's company than elsewhere, is to go. Wil

1 Fassmann, p. 404.

17th Feb., 1730.

helmina had taken leave of him night of the 17th, in her Majesty's Apartment, and was in the act of undressing for bed, when-judge of a young Princess's terror and surprise

"There stepped into the ante-room," visible in the half-light there, a most handsome little Cavalier, dressed, not succinctly as Colonel of the Potsdam Giants, but "in magnificent French style. I gave a shriek, not knowing who it was, and hid myself behind a screen. Madame de Sonsfeld, my Governess, not less frightened than myself, ran out" to see what audacious person, at such undue hour, it could be. “But she returned next moment accompanying the Cavalier, who was laughing heartily, and whom I recognized for my brother. His dress so altered him he seemed a different person. He was in the best humor possible. "I am come to bid you farewell once more, my dear Sister,' said he, and as I know the friendship you have for me, I will not keep you ignorant of my designs. I go, and do not come back. I can not endure the usage I suffer; my patience is driven to an end. It is a favorable opportunity for flinging off that odious yoke. I will glide out of Dresden, and get across to England, where I do not doubt I shall work out your deliverance too when I am got thither. So I beg you calm yourself. We shall soon meet again in places where joy shall succeed our tears, and where we shall have the happiness to see ourselves in peace, and free from these persecutions.'"*

Wilhelmina stood stupefied in silence for some moments; argued long with her Brother; finally got him to renounce those wild plans, or at least postpone them, and give her his word that he would attempt nothing on the present occasion.

This small Dresden Excursion of February, 1730, passed, accordingly, without accident. It was but the prelude to a much grander Visit now agreed upon between the neighboring Majesties, for there is a grand thing in the wind; something truly sublime, of the scenic-military kind, which has not yet got a name, but shall soon have a world-wide one-"Camp of Mühlberg," "Camp of Radewitz," or however to be named-which his Polish Majesty will hold in those Saxon parts in a month or two: a thing that will astonish all the world, we may hope, and where the King and Prince of Prussia are to attend as chief guests.

It was during this brief absence in February, or directly after Friedrich Wilhelm had returned, that Queen Sophie had that 2 Wilhelmina, i., 205.

Feb., 1730.

fit of real sickness we spoke of. Scarcely was his Majesty got home, when the Queen, rather ambiguous in her sicknesses of late, fell really and dangerously ill, so that Friedrich Wilhelm, at last recognizing it for real, came hurrying in from Potsdam; wept loud and abundantly, poor man; declared in private “he would not survive his Feekin;" and for her sake solemnly pardoned Wilhelmina, and even Fritz, till the symptoms mended.3

How Villa was received in England.

Meanwhile Dr. Villa, in England, has sped not ill. Villa's eloquence of truth; the Grumkow-Reichenbach Correspondence in St. Mary Axe-these two things produce their effect. These on the one hand, and then, on the other, certain questionable aspects of Fleury after that fine Soissons Catastrophe to the Kaiser, and certain interior quarrels in the English Ministry, partly grounded thereon: "On the whole, why should not we detach Friedrich Wilhelm from the Kaiser, if we could, and comply with a Royal Sister?" think they at St. James's.

Political men take some interest in the question: "Why neglect your Prince of Wales?" grumbles the Public. "It is a solid Protestant match, eligible for Prince Fred and us!" "Why bother with the Kaiser and his German puddles ?" asks Walpole. "Once detach Prussia from him, the Kaiser will perhaps sit still, and leave the world and us free of his Pragmatics, and his Sanctions, and Appanages." "Quit of him? German puddles?" answers Townshend dubitatively, who has gained favor at head-quarters by going deeply into said puddles, and is not so ardent for the Prussian match, and, indeed, is generally getting into quarrel with Walpole and Queen Caroline. These things are all favorable to Dr. Villa.

In fact, there is one of those political tempests (dreadful to the tea-pot, were it not experienced in them) going on in England at this time-what we call a Change of Ministry-daily crisis laboring toward fulfillment, or brewing itself ripe. Townshend and Walpole have had (how many weeks ago Coxe does not tell us) that meeting in Colonel Selwyn's which ended in their clutching at Swords, nay, almost at coat-collars :5 honCoxe, i., 332–339. Ib., p. 335.

Wilhelmina, i., 306.

4

Feb., 1730. orable Brothers-in-Law; but the good sister who used to reconTheir quarrels, growing for some years

cile them is now dead. past, are coming to a head. "When the firm used to be Townshend and Walpole, all was well; when it had to become Walpole and Townshend, all was not well," said Walpole afterward. Things had already gone so far that Townshend brought Chesterfield over from the Hague last Autumn-a Baron de Montesquieu, with the Esprit des Lois in his head, sailed with Lord Chesterfield on that occasion, and is now in England "for two years"-but Chesterfield could not be made Secretary, industrious Duke of Newcastle stuck so close by that office, and by the skirts of Walpole. Chesterfield and Townshend versus Walpole, Colonel Stanhope (Harrington), and the Pelhams: the Prussian match is a card in that game, and Dr. Villa's eloquence of truth is not lost on Queen Caroline, who, in a private way, manages, as always, to rule pretty supreme in it.

6

There lies in the State Paper Office, without date or signature, a loose, detached bit of writing, in scholastic style, but brief and to the purpose, which is evidently the Memorial of Villa, but as it teaches us nothing that we do not already know, it need not be inserted here. The man, we can perceive farther, continued useful in those Official quarters, answering questions about Prussia, helping in the St. Mary Axe decipherings, and in other small ways for some time longer, after which he vanishes again from all record, whether to teach English farther, or live on some modicum of pension granted, no man knows. Poor old Dove, let out upon the Deluge in serge gown, he did bring back a bit of olive, so to speak; had the presage but held, as it did in Noah's case!

In a word, the English Sovereignties and Ministries have determined that an Envoy Extraordinary (one Hotham, they think of), with the due solemnity, be sent straightway to Berlin, to treat of those interesting matters, and officially put the question there, whom Dubourgay is instructed to announce to his Prussian Majesty with salutation from this Court; as Dubourgay does straightway, with a great deal of pleasure. How welcome to his Majesty we need not say.

7

Close by Dispatch (Prussian): "London, 8th Feb. (O.S.), 1729-30.” Dispatches: London, 8th February; Berlin, 2d March, 1730,

1st March, 1730.

And, indeed, after such an announcement (1st March, 1730, the day of it), they fell into cheerful dialogue, and the Brigadier had some frank conversation with his Majesty about the "Arbitration Commission," then sitting at Brunswick, and European affairs in general-conversation which is carefully preserved for us in the Brigadier's Dispatch of the morrow. It never was intrinsically of much moment, and is now fallen very obsolete and altogether of none, but, as a glance at first hand into the dim old thoughts of Friedrich Wilhelm, the reader may take it with him:

"The King said next that, though we made little noise, yet he knew well our design was to kindle a fire in other parts of Lower Germany. To which I answered, that if his Majesty would give me favorable hearing, I could easily persuade him of the peaceable intentions of our Allies. 'Well,' says he, 'the Emperor will abandon the Netherlands, and who will be master of them? I see the day when you will make France so powerful that it will be difficult to bring them to reason again.' Dubourgay: 'If the Emperor abandoned the Netherlands, they would be governed by their own Magistrates, and defended by their own Militia. As to the French, we are too well persuaded of the benefit of our Allies to- Upon which the King of Prussia said, 'It appeared plainly we had a mind to dispose as we pleased of Kingdoms and provinces in Italy, so that probably our next thought would be to do the same in Germany.' Dubourgay: 'The allotments made in favor of Don Carlos have been made with the consent of the Emperor and the whole Empire. We could not suffer a longer interruption of our Commerce with Spain for the sake of the small difference between the Treaty of Seville and the Quadruple Alliance in regard to the Garrison" "-to the introducing of Spanish Garrisons at once into Parma and Piacenza, which was the special thunderbolt of the late Soissons catastrophe, or Treaty of Seville. "Well, then,' says his Prussian Majesty, 'you must allow, then, there is an infraction of the Quadruple Alliance, and that the Emperor will make war!' 'I hope not,' said I; 'but if so, a Ten-years War, in conjunction with the Allies of Seville, never would be so bad as the interruption of our Commerce with Old and New Spain for one year.'

"The King of Prussia's notion about our disposing of Provinces in Germany," adds Dubourgay, "is, I believe, an insinuation of Seckendorf, who, I doubt not, has made him believe we intended to do so with respect to Berg and Jülich."

Very probably; but Hotham is getting under weigh, hopeful