The Father of these two Margraves (elder of the two Half-brothers that have children) died in the time of Old King Friedrich, eight or nine years ago. Their Mother, the scheming old Margravine, whom I always fancy to dress in high colors, is still living,--as Wilhelmina well knows!
Then, by another, the younger of those old Half-brothers, there is a Karl, a second Friedrich Wilhelm, Cousin Margraves: plenty of Cousins;--and two young Margravines among them, [Michaelis, i. 425.] the youngest about Fritz's own age. [NOTE OF THE COUSINMARGRAVES.--Great Elector, by his Second Wife, had five Sons, two of whom left Children;--as follows (so far as they concern us,--he others omitted):--1. Son PHILIP'S Children (Mother the Old Dessauer's Sister) are:
Friedrich Wilhelm (1700), who wished much, but in vain, to marry Wilhelmina. Heinrich Friedrich (1709), a comrade of Fritz's in youth; sometimes getting into scrapes;--misbehaved, some way, at the Battle of Molwits (first of Friedrich's Battles), 1741, and was inexorably CUT by the new King, and continued under a cloud thenceforth .--This PHILIP ("Philip Wilhelm") died 1711, his forty-third year; Widow long survived him.
2. Son ALBERT'S Children (Mother a Courland Princess) are:
Karl (1705); lived near Custrin; became a famed captain, in the Silesian Wars, under his Cousin. Friedrich (1701); fell at Molwitz, 1741. Friedrich Wilhelm (a Margraf Friedrich Wilhelm "No. 2,"--NAMESAKE of his now Majesty, it is like); born 1714;killed at Prag, by a cannon-shot (at King Friedrich's hand, reconnoitring the place), 1744.--This ALBERT ("Albert Friedrich" )died suddenly 1731, age fifty-nine.]
No want of Cousins; the Crown-Prince seeing much of them all;and learning pleasantly their various qualities, which were good in most, in some not so good, and did not turn out supreme in any case. But, for the rest, Sister Wilhelmina is his grand confederate and companion; true in sport and in earnest, in joy and in sorrow. Their truthful love to one another, now and till death, is probably the brightest element their life yielded to either of them.
What might be the date of Fritz's first appearance in the Roucoulles "Soiree held on Wednesdays," in the Finkenstein or any other Soiree, as an independent figure, I do not know. But at the proper time, he does appear there, and with distinction not extrinsic alone;--talks delightfully in such places; can discuss, even with French Divines, in a charmingly ingenious manner.
Another of his elderly consorts I must mention: Colonel Camas, a highly cultivated Frenchman (French altogether by parentage and breeding, though born on Prussian land), who was Tutor, at one time, to some of those young Margraves. He has lost an arm,--left it in those Italian Campaigns, under Anhalt-Dessau and Eugene;--but by the aid of a cork substitute, dexterously managed, almost hides the want. A gallant soldier, fit for the diplomacies too;a man of fine high ways. [<italic> Militair-Lexicon, <end italic>
i. 308.] And then his Wife--In fact, the Camas House, we perceive, had from an early time been one of the Crown-Prince's haunts.
Madam Camas is a German Lady; but for genial elegance, for wit and wisdom and goodness, could not readily be paralleled in France or elsewhere. Of both these Camases there will be honorable and important mention by and by; especially of the Lady, whom he continues to call "Mamma" for fifty years to come, and corresponds with in a very beautiful and human fashion.
Under these auspices, in such environment, dimly visible to us, at Wusterhausen and elsewhere, is the remarkable little Crown-Prince of his century growing up,--prosperously as yet.
Chapter X.
THE HEIDELBERG PROTESTANTS.
Friedrich Wilhelm holds Tabagie nightly; but at Wusterhausen or wherever he may be, there is no lack of intricate Official Labor, which, even in the Tabagie, Friedrich Wilhelm does not forget.
At the time he was concocting those Instructions for his little Prince's Schoolmasters, and smoking meditative under the stars, with Magdeburg "RITTER-DIENST" and much else of his own to think of,--there is an extraneous Political Intricacy, ****** noise enough in the world, much in his thoughts withal, and no doubt occasionally murmured of amid the tobacco-clouds. The Business of the Heidelberg Protestants; which is just coming to a height in those Autumn months of 1719.
Indeed this Year 1719 was a particularly noisy one for him.
This is the year of the "nephritic colic," which befell at Brandenburg on some journey of his Majesty's; with alarm of immediate death; Queen Sophie sent for by express; testament made in her favor; and intrigues, very black ones, Wilhelmina thinks, following thereupon. [<italic> Memoires de Bareith, <end italic>
i. 26-29.] And the "Affair of Clement," on which the old Books are so profuse, falls likewise, the crisis of it falls, in 1719.