That is visible enough; and worth looking at. Visible enough the rolling Donau, Marlborough's place; the narrow ground, the bordering Hills all green at this season;--and down old Buddenbrock's cheek, end Anhalt's, there would roll an iron tear or two. Augsburg is but some thirty miles off, once we are across the Donau,--by the Bridge of Donauworth, or the Ferry of Hochstadt,--swift travellers in a long day, the last of July, are soon enough at Augsburg.
As for Friedrich, haunted and whipt onwards by that scene at Feuchtwang, he is inwardly very busy during this latter part of the route. Probably there is some progress towards gaining Page Keith, Lieutenant Keith of Wesel's Brother; some hope that Page Keith, at the right moment, can be gained: the Lieutenant at Wesel is kept duly advised. To Lieutenant Katte at Berlin Friedrich now writes, I should judge from Donauworth or Augsburg, "That he has had a scene at Feuchtwang; that he can stand it no longer.
That Canstatt being given up, as Katte cannot be there to go across the Kniebiss with us, we will endure till we are near enough the Rhine. Once in the Rhineland, in some quiet Town there, handy for Speyer, for French Landau,"--say Sinzheim; last stage hitherward of Heidelberg, but this we do not write,--"there might it not be? Be, somewhere, it shall and must! You, Katte, the instant you hear that we are off, speed you towards the Hague;ask for 'M. le Comte d'Alberville;' you will know that gentleman WHEN you see him: Keith, our Wesel friend, will have taken the preliminary soundings;--and I tell you, Count d'Alberville, or news of him, will be there. Bring the great-coat with you, and the other things, especially the 1,000 gold ducats. Count d'Alberville at the Hague, if all have gone right:--nay if anything go wrong, cannot he, once across the Rhine, take refuge in the convents in those Catholic regions? Nobody, under the scapulary, will suspect such a heretic as him. Speed, silence, vigilance! And so adieu!"A letter of such purport Friedrich did write; which Letter, moreover, the Lieutenant Katte received: it was not this, it was another, that stuck upon the road, and fell into the Rittmeister's hand. This is the young Prince's ultimate fixed project, brought to birth by that slight accident of dropping the knife at Feuchtwang; [Ranke, i. 304.] and hanging heavy on his mind during this Augsburg drive. At Augsburg, furthermore, "he bought, in all privacy, red cloth, of quantity to make a top-coat;" red, the gray being unattainable in Katte's hands: in all privacy; though the watchful Rochow had full knowledge of it, all the same.
Chapter VI.
JOURNEY HOMEWARDS FROM THE REICH; CATASTROPHE ON JOURNEY HOMEWARDSThe travelling Majesty of Prussia went diligently up and down, investigating ancient Augsburg: saw, I doubt not, the FUGGEREI, or ancient Hospice of the Fuggers,--who were once Weavers in those parts, and are now Princes, and were known to entertain Charles V.
with fires of cinnamon, nay with transient flames of Bank-bills on one old occasion. Saw all the Fuggeries, I doubt not; the ancient Luther-and-Melanchthon relics, Diet-Halls and notabilities of this renowned Free Town;--perhaps remembered Margraf George, and loud-voiced Kurfurst Joachim with the Bottle-nose (our DIRECTAncestor, though mistaken in opinion on some points!), who were once so audible there.
One passing phenomenon we expressly know he saw; a human, not a historically important one. Driving through the streets from place to place, his Majesty came athwart some questionable quaint procession, ribbony, perhaps musical; Majesty questioned it:
"A wedding procession, your Majesty!"--"Will the Bride step out, then, and let us see how she is dressed!" "VOM HERZEN GERN;will have the honor." Bride stept out, with blushes,--handsome we will hope; Majesty surveyed her, on the streets of Augsburg, having a human heart in him; and (says Fassmann, as if with insidious insinuation) "is said to have made her a present."She went her way; fulfilled her destiny in an anonymous manner:
Friedrich Wilhelm, loudly named in the world, did the like;and their two orbits never intersected again.--Some forty-five miles south of Augsburg, up the Wertach River, more properly up the Mindel River, lies Mindelheim, once a name known in England and in Prussia; once the Duke of Marlborough's "Principality:"given him by a grateful Kaiser Joseph; taken from him by a necessitous Kaiser Karl, Joseph's Brother, that now is. I know not if his Majesty remembers that transaction, now while in these localities; but know well, if he does, he must think it a shabby one.
On the same day, 1st August, 1730, we quit Augsburg; set out fairly homewards again. The route bends westward this time;towards Frankfurt-on-Mayn; there yachts are to be ready; and mere sailing thenceforth, gallantly down the Rhine-stream,--such a yacht-voyage, in the summer weather, with no Tourists yet infesting it,--to end, happily we will hope, at Wesel, in the review of regiments, and other business. First stage, first pause, is to be at Ludwigsburg, and the wicked old Duke of Wurtemberg's;thither first from Augsburg. We cross the Donau at Dillingen, at Gunzberg, or I know not where; and by to-morrow's sunset, being rapid travellers, find ourselves at Ludwigsburg,--clear through Canstatt, Stuttgard, and certainly no Katte waiting there!