



Produced by D.R. Thompson





HISTORY OF FRIEDRICH II. OF PRUSSIA

FREDERICK THE GREAT

By Thomas Carlyle




BOOK XXI.--AFTERNOON AND EVENING OF FRIEDRICH'S LIFE--1763-1786.




Chapter I.--PREFATORY.

The Twelve Hercules-labors of this King have ended here; what was
required of him in World-History is accomplished. There remain to
Friedrich Twenty-three Years more of Life, which to Prussian History are
as full of importance as ever; but do not essentially concern European
History, Europe having gone the road we now see it in. On the grand
World-Theatre the curtain has fallen for a New Act; Friedrich's part,
like everybody's for the present, is played out. In fact, there is,
during the rest of his Reign, nothing of World-History to be dwelt on
anywhere. America, it has been decided, shall be English; Prussia be a
Nation. The French, as finis of their attempt to cut Germany in Four,
find themselves sunk into torpor, abeyance and dry-rot; fermenting
towards they know not what. Towards Spontaneous Combustion in the year
1789, and for long years onwards!

There, readers, there is the next milestone for you, in the History of
Mankind! That universal Burning-up, as in hell-fire, of Human Shams. The
oath of Twenty-five Million men, which has since become that of all men
whatsoever, "Rather than live longer under lies, we will die!"--that
is the New Act in World-History. New Act,--or, we may call it New PART;
Drama of World-History, Part Third. If Part SECOND was 1,800 years ago,
this I reckon will be Part THIRD. This is the truly celestial-infernal
Event: the strangest we have seen for a thousand years. Celestial in
one part; in the other, infernal. For it is withal the breaking out
of universal mankind into Anarchy, into the faith and practice
of NO-Government,--that is to say (if you will be candid), into
unappeasable Revolt against Sham-Governors and Sham-Teachers,--which
I do charitably define to be a Search, most unconscious, yet in deadly
earnest, for true Governors and Teachers. That is the one fact of
World-History worth dwelling on at this day; and Friedrich cannot be
said to have had much hand farther in that.

Nor is the progress of a French or European world, all silently ripening
and rotting towards such issue, a thing one wishes to dwell on. Only
when the Spontaneous Combustion breaks out; and, many-, with loud
noises, envelops the whole world in anarchic flame for long hundreds of
years: then has the Event come; there is the thing for all men to
mark, and to study and scrutinize as the strangest thing they ever saw.
Centuries of it yet lying ahead of us; several sad Centuries, sordidly
tumultuous, and good for little! Say Two Centuries yet,--say even Ten of
such a process: before the Old is completely burnt out, and the New in
any state of sightliness? Millennium of Anarchies;--abridge it, spend
your heart's-blood upon abridging it, ye Heroic Wise that are to
come! For it is the consummation of All the Anarchies that are and
were;--which I do trust always means the death (temporary death) of
them! Death of the Anarchies: or a world once more built wholly on Fact
better or worse; and the lying jargoning professor of Sham-Fact, whose
name is Legion, who as yet (oftenest little conscious of himself) goes
tumulting and swarming from shore to shore, become a species extinct,
and well known to be gone down to Tophet!--

There were bits of Anarchies before, little and greater: but till that
of France in 1789, there was none long memorable; all were pygmies in
comparison, and not worth mentioning separately. In 1772 the Anarchy of
Poland, which had been a considerable Anarchy for about three
hundred years, got itself extinguished,--what we may call
extinguished;--decisive surgery being then first exercised upon it: an
Anarchy put in the sure way of extinction. In 1775, again, there began,
over seas, another Anarchy much more considerable,--little dreaming that
IT could be called an Anarchy; on the contrary, calling itself Liberty,
Rights of Man; and singing boundless Io-Paeans to itself, as is common
in such cases; an Anarchy which has been challenging the Universe
to show the like ever since. And which has, at last, flamed up as an
independent Phenomenon, unexampled in the hideously SUICIDAL way;--and
does need much to get burnt out, that matters may begin anew on truer
conditions. But neither the PARTITION OF POLAND nor the AMERICAN WAR OF
INDEPENDENCE have much general importance, or, except as precursors
of 1789, are worth dwelling on in History. From us here, so far as
Friedrich is concerned with them, they may deserve some transient
mention, more or less: but World-History, eager to be at the general
Funeral-pile and ultimate Burning-up of Shams in this poor World, will
have less and less to say of small tragedies and premonitory symptoms.

Curious how the busy and continually watchful and speculating Friedrich,
busied about his dangers from Austrian encroachments, from Russian-Turk
Wars, Bavarian Successions, and other troubles and anarchies close
by, saw nothing to dread in France; nothing to remark there, except
carelessly, from time to time, its beggarly decaying condition, so
strangely sunk in arts, in arms, in finance; oftenest an object of pity
to him, for he still has a love for France;--and reads not the least
sign of that immeasurable, all-engulfing FRENCH REVOLUTION which was in
the wind! Neither Voltaire nor he have the least anticipation of such a
thing. Voltaire and he see, to their contentment, Superstition
visibly declining: Friedrich rather disapproves the heat of Voltaire's
procedures on the INFAME. "Why be in such heat? Other nonsense, quite
equal to it, will be almost sure to follow. Take care of your own skin!"
Voltaire and he are deeply alive, especially Voltaire is, to the
horrors and miseries which have issued on mankind from a Fanatic Popish
Superstition, or Creed of Incredibilities,--which (except from the
throat outwards, from the bewildered tongue outwards) the orthodox
themselves cannot believe, but only pretend and struggle to believe.
This Voltaire calls "THE INFAMOUS;" and this--what name can any of us
give it? The man who believes in falsities is very miserable. The man
who cannot believe them, but only struggles and pretends to believe;
and yet, being armed with the power of the sword, industriously keeps
menacing and slashing all round, to compel every neighbor to do like
him: what is to be done with such a man? Human Nature calls him a Social
Nuisance; needing to be handcuffed, gagged and abated. Human Nature, if
it be in a terrified and imperilled state, with the sword of this fellow
swashing round it, calls him "Infamous," and a Monster of Chaos. He
is indeed the select Monster of that region; the Patriarch of all the
Monsters, little as he dreams of being such. An Angel of Heaven the poor
caitiff dreams himself rather, and in cheery moments is conscious of
being:--Bedlam holds in it no madder article. And I often think he will
again need to be tied up (feeble as he now is in comparison, disinclined
though men are to manacling and tying); so many helpless infirm souls
are wandering about, not knowing their right hand from their left, who
fall a prey to him. "L'INFAME" I also name him,--knowing well enough how
little he, in his poor muddled, drugged and stupefied mind, is conscious
of deserving that name. More signal enemy to God, and friend of the
Other Party, walks not the Earth in our day.

Anarchy in the shape of religious slavery was what Voltaire and
Friedrich saw all round them. Anarchy in the shape of Revolt against
Authorities was what Friedrich and Voltaire had never dreamed of as
possible, and had not in their minds the least idea of. In one, or
perhaps two places you may find in Voltaire a grim and rather glad
forethought, not given out as prophecy, but felt as interior assurance
in a moment of hope, How these Priestly Sham Hierarchies will be pulled
to pieces, probably on the sudden, once people are awake to them. Yes,
my much-suffering M. de Voltaire, be pulled to pieces; or go aloft,
like the awakening of Vesuvius, one day,--Vesuvius awakening after
ten centuries of slumber, when his crater is all grown grassy, bushy,
copiously "tenanted by wolves" I am told; which, after premonitory
grumblings, heeded by no wolf or bush, he will hurl bodily aloft, ten
acres at a time, in a very tremendous manner! [First modern Eruption of
Vesuvius, A.D. 1631, after long interval of rest.] A thought like this,
about the Priestly Sham-Hierarchies, I have found somewhere in Voltaire:
but of the Social and Civic Sham-Hierarchies (which are likewise
accursed, if they knew it, and indeed are junior co-partners of the
Priestly; and, in a sense, sons and products of them, and cannot escape
being partakers of their plagues), there is no hint, in Voltaire, though
Voltaire stood at last only fifteen years from the Fact (1778-1793); nor
in Friedrich, though he lived almost to see the Fact beginning.

Friedrich's History being henceforth that of a Prussian King, is
interesting to Prussia chiefly, and to us little otherwise than as the
Biography of a distinguished fellow-man, Friedrich's Biography, his
Physiognomy as he grows old, quietly on his own harvest-field, among his
own People: this has still an interest, and for any feature of this we
shall be eager enough; but this withal is the most of what we now want.
And not very much even of this; Friedrich the unique King not having
as a man any such depth and singularity, tragic, humorous, devotionally
pious, or other, as to authorize much painting in that aspect. Extreme
brevity beseems us in these circumstances: and indeed there are,--as has
already happened in different parts of this Enterprise (Nature
herself, in her silent way, being always something of an Artist in such
things),--other circumstances, which leave us no choice as to that of
detail. Available details, if we wished to give them, of Friedrich's
later Life, are not forthcoming: masses of incondite marine-stores,
tumbled out on you, dry rubbish shot with uncommon diligence for a
hundred years, till, for Rubbish-Pelion piled on Rubbish-Ossa, you lose
sight of the stars and azimuths; whole mountain continents, seemingly
all of cinders and sweepings (though fragments and remnants do lie
hidden, could you find them again):---these are not details that will be
available! Anecdotes there are in quantity; but of uncertain quality;
of doubtful authenticity, above all. One recollects hardly any
Anecdote whatever that seems completely credible, or renders to us the
Physiognomy of Friedrich in a convincing manner. So remiss a creature
has the Prussian Clio been,--employed on all kinds of loose errands over
the Earth and the Air; and as good as altogether negligent of this most
pressing errand in her own House. Peace be with her, poor slut;
why should we say one other hard word on taking leave of her to all
eternity!--

The Practical fact is, what we have henceforth to produce is more of
the nature of a loose Appendix of Papers, than of a finished Narrative.
Loose Papers,--which, we will hope, the reader can, by industry, be made
to understand and tolerate: more we cannot do for him. No continuous
Narrative is henceforth possible to us. For the sake of Friedrich's
closing Epoch, we will visit, for the last time, that dreary imbroglio
under which the memory of Friedrich, which ought to have been, in all
the epochs of it, bright and legible, lies buried; and will try to
gather, as heretofore, and put under labels. What dwells with oneself
as human may have some chance to be humanly interesting. In the wildest
chaos of marine-stores and editorial shortcomings (provided only the
editors speak truth, as these poor fellows do) THIS can be done.
Part the living from the dead; pick out what has some meaning, leave
carefully what has none; you will in some small measure pluck up the
memory of a hero, like drowned honor by the locks, and rescue it, into
visibility.

That Friedrich, on reaching home, made haste to get out, of the bustle
of joyances and exclamations on the streets; proceeded straight to his
music-chapel in Charlottenburg, summoning the Artists, or having them
already summoned; and had there, all alone, sitting invisible wrapt in
his cloak, Graun's or somebody's grand TE-DEUM pealed out to him, in
seas of melody,--soothing and salutary to the altered soul, revolving
many things,--is a popular myth, of pretty and appropriate character;
but a myth only, with no real foundation, though it has some loose
and apparent. [In PREUSS, ii. 46, all the details of it.] No doubt,
Friedrich had his own thoughts on entering Berlin again, after such
a voyage through the deeps; himself, his Country still here, though
solitary and in a world of wild shipwrecks. He was not without piety;
but it did not take the devotional form, and his habits had nothing of
the clerical.

What is perfectly known, and much better worth knowing, is the
instantaneous practical alacrity with which he set about repairing that
immense miscellany of ruin; and the surprising success he had in dealing
with it. His methods, his rapid inventions and procedures, in this
matter, are still memorable to Prussia; and perhaps might with advantage
be better known than they are in some other Countries. To us, what is
all we can do with them here, they will indicate that this is still the
old Friedrich, with his old activities and promptitudes; which indeed
continue unabated, lively in Peace as in War, to the end of his life and
reign.

The speed with which Prussia recovered was extraordinary. Within little
more than a year (June 1st, 1764), the Coin was all in order again; in
1765, the King had rebuilt, not to mention other things, "in Silesia
8,000 Houses, in Pommern 6,500." [Rodenbeck, ii. 234, 261.] Prussia has
been a meritorious Nation; and, however cut and ruined, is and was in a
healthy state, capable of recovering soon. Prussia has defended itself
against overwhelming odds,--brave Prussia; but the real soul of its
merit was that of having merited such a King to command it. Without this
King, all its valors, disciplines, resources of war, would have availed
Prussia little. No wonder Prussia has still a loyalty to its great
Friedrich, to its Hohenzollern Sovereigns generally. Without these
Hohenzollerns, Prussia had been, what we long ago saw it, the unluckiest
of German Provinces; and could never have had the pretension to exist
as a Nation at all. Without this particular Hohenzollern, it had been
trampled out again, after apparently succeeding. To have achieved a
Friedrich the Second for King over it, was Prussia's grand merit.

An accidental merit, thinks the reader? No, reader, you may believe me,
it is by no means altogether such. Nay, I rather think, could we look
into the Account-Books of the Recording Angel for a course of centuries,
no part of it is such! There are Nations in which a Friedrich is, or can
be, possible; and again there are Nations in which he is not and
cannot. To be practically reverent of Human Worth to the due extent,
and abhorrent of Human Want of Worth in the like proportion, do
you understand that art at all? I fear, not,--or that you are much
forgetting it again! Human Merit, do you really love it enough, think
you;--human Scoundrelism (brought to the dock for you, and branded as
scoundrel), do you even abhor it enough? Without that reverence and
its corresponding opposite-pole of abhorrence, there is simply no
possibility left. That, my friend, is the outcome and summary of all
virtues in this world, for a man or for a Nation of men. It is the
supreme strength and glory of a Nation;--without which, indeed, all
other strengths, and enormities of bullion and arsenals and warehouses,
are no strength. None, I should say;--and are oftenest even the REVERSE.

Nations who have lost this quality, or who never had it, what Friedrich
can they hope to be possible among them? Age after age they grind
down their Friedrichs contentedly under the hoofs of cattle on their
highways; and even find it an excellent practice, and pride themselves
on Liberty and Equality. Most certain it is, there will no Friedrich
come to rule there; by and by, there will none be born there. Such
Nations cannot have a King to command them; can only have this or
the other scandalous swindling Copper Captain, constitutional Gilt
Mountebank, or other the like unsalutary entity by way of King; and the
sins of the fathers are visited upon the children in a frightful and
tragical manner, little noticed in the Penny Newspapers and Periodical
Literatures of this generation. Oh, my friends--! But there is plain
Business waiting us at hand.




Chapter II.--REPAIRING OF A RUINED PRUSSIA.

That of Friedrich's sitting wrapt in a cloud of reflections
Olympian-Abysmal, in the music-chapel at Charlottenburg, while he had
the Ambrosian Song executed for him there, as the preliminary step, was
a loose myth; but the fact lying under it is abundantly certain. Few
Sons of Adam had more reason for a piously thankful feeling towards the
Past, a piously valiant towards the Future. What king or man had seen
himself delivered from such strangling imbroglios of destruction, such
devouring rages of a hostile world? And the ruin worked by them lay
monstrous and appalling all round. Friedrich is now Fifty-one gone;
unusually old for his age; feels himself an old man, broken with years
and toils; and here lies his Kingdom in haggard slashed condition, worn
to skin and bone: How is the King, resourceless, to remedy it? That is
now the seemingly impossible problem. "Begin it,--thereby alone will it
ever cease to be impossible!" Friedrich begins, we may say, on the
first morrow morning. Labors at his problem, as he did in the march to
Leuthen; finds it to become more possible, day after day, month after
month, the farther he strives with it.

"Why not leave it to Nature?" think many, with the Dismal Science
at their elbow. Well; that was the easiest plan, but it was not
Friedrich's. His remaining moneys, 25 million thalers ready for a
Campaign which has not come, he distributes to the most necessitous:
"all his artillery-horses" are parted into plough-teams, and given to
those who can otherwise get none: think what a fine figure of rye
and barley, instead of mere windlestraws, beggary and desolation, was
realized by that act alone. Nature is ready to do much; will of herself
cover, with some veil of grass and lichen, the nakedness of ruin: but
her victorious act, when she can accomplish it, is that of getting YOU
to go with her handsomely, and change disaster itself into new wealth.
Into new wisdom and valor, which are wealth in all kinds; California
mere zero to them, zero, or even a frightful MINUS quantity! Friedrich's
procedures in this matter I believe to be little less didactic than
those other, which are so celebrated in War: but no Dryasdust, not even
a Dryasdust of the Dismal Science, has gone into them, rendered men
familiar with them in their details and results. His Silesian Land-Bank
(joint-stock Moneys, lent on security of Land) was of itself, had I room
to explain it, an immense furtherance. [Preuss, iii. 75; _OEuvres de
Frederic,_ vi. 84.] Friedrich, many tell us, was as great in Peace as
in War: and truly, in the economic and material provinces, my own
impression, gathered painfully in darkness, and contradiction of the
Dismal-Science Doctors, is much to that effect. A first-rate Husbandman
(as his Father had been); who not only defended his Nation, but made it
rich beyond what seemed possible; and diligently sowed annuals into it,
and perennials which flourish aloft at this day.

Mirabeau's _Monarchie Prussienne,_ in 8 thick Volumes 8vo,--composed, or
hastily cobbled together, some Twenty years after this period,--contains
the best tabular view one anywhere gets of Friedrich's economics,
military and other practical methods and resources:--solid exact Tables
these are, and intelligent intelligible descriptions, done by Mauvillon
FILS, the same punctual Major Mauvillon who used to attend us in Duke
Ferdinand's War;--and so far as Mirabeau is concerned, the Work consists
farther of a certain small Essay done in big type, shoved into the belly
of each Volume, and eloquently recommending, with respectful censures
and regrets over Friedrich, the Gospel of Free Trade, dear to Papa
Mirabeau. The Son is himself a convert; far above lying, even to
please Papa: but one can see, the thought