Rather ugly than handsome; slightly out of shape even (UN PEUCONTREFAIT). But provided you have the complaisance to suffer his debaucheries, you will quite govern him; and you will be more King than he, when once his Father is dead. Only see what a part you will play! It will be you that decide on the weal or woe of Europe, and give law to the Nation," [Wilhelmina, i. 143.]--in a manner! Which Wilhelmina did not think a celestial prospect even then. Who knows but, of all the offers she had, "four" or three "crowned heads" among them, this final modest honest one may be intrinsically the best? Take your portion, if inevitable, and be thankful!--The Betrothal follows in about a week: Sunday, 3d June, 1731; with great magnificence, in presence of the high guests and all the world: and Wilhelmina is the affianced Bride of Friedrich of Baireuth:--and that enormous Double-Marriage Tragi-comedy, of Much Ado about Nothing, is at last ended. Courage, friends; all things do end!--The high guests hereupon go their ways again; and the Court of Berlin, one cannot but suppose, collapses, as after a great effort finished. Do not Friedrich Wilhelm and innumerable persons--the readers and the writer of this History included--feel a stone rolled off their hearts?--It is now, and not till now, that Queen Sophie falls sick, and like to die; and reproaches Wilhelmina with killing her. Friedrich Wilhelm hopes confidently, not; waits out at Potsdam, for a few days, till this killing danger pass;then departs, with double impetuosity, for Preussen, and despatch of Public Business; such a mountain of Domestic Business being victoriously got under.
Poor King, his life, this long while, has been a series of earthquakes and titanic convulsions. Narrow miss he has had, of pulling down his house about his ears, and burying self, son, wife, family and fortunes, under the ruin-heap,--a monument to remote posterity. Never was such an enchanted dance, of well-intentioned Royal Bear with poetic temperament, piped to by two black-artists, for the Kaiser's and Pragmatic Sanction's sake!
Let Tobacco-Parliament also rejoice; for truly the play was growing dangerous, of late. King and Parliament, we may suppose, return to Public Business with double vigor.
Chapter IV.
CRIMINAL JUSTICE IN PREUSSEN AND ELSEWHERE.
Not that his Majesty, while at the deepest in domestic intricacies, ever neglects Public Business. This very summer he is raising Hussar Squadrons; bent to introduce the Hussar kind of soldiery into his Army;--a good deal of horse-breaking and new sabre-exercise needed for that object. [Fassmann, pp. 417, 418.]
The affairs of the Reich have at no moment been out of his eye;glad to see the Kaiser edging round to the Sea-Powers again, and things coming into their old posture, in spite of that sad Treaty of Seville.
Nay, for the last two years, while the domestic volcanoes were at their worst, his Majesty has been extensively dealing with a new question which has risen, that of the SALZBURG PROTESTANTS;concerning which we shall hear more anon. Far and wide, in the Diets and elsewhere, he has been diligently, piously and with solid judgment, handling this question of the poor Salzburgers;and has even stored up moneys in intended solace of them (for he foresees what the end will be);--moneys which, it appears about this time, a certain Official over in Preussen has been peculating! In the end of June, his Majesty sets off to Preussen on the usual Inspection Tour; which we should not mention, were it not in regard to that same Official, and to something very rhadamanthine and particular which befell him; significant of what his Majesty can do in the way of prompt justice.
CASE OF SCHLUBHUT.
The Konigsberg Domain-Board (KRIEGS- UND DOMANEN-KAMMER) had fallen awry, in various points, of late; several things known to be out-at-elbows in that Country; the Kammer Raths evidently lax at their post; for which reason they have been sharply questioned, and shaken by the collar, so to speak. Nay there is one Rath, a so-called Nobleman of those parts, by name Schlubhut, who has been found actually defaulting; peculating from that pious hoard intended for the Salzburgers: he is proved, and confesses, to have put into his own scandalous purse no less than 11,000 thalers, some say 30,000 (almost 5,000 pounds), which belonged to the Public Treasury and the Salzburg Protestants! These things, especially this latter unheard-of Schlubhut thing, the Supreme Court at Berlin (CRIMINAL-COLLEGIUM) have been sitting on, for some time; and, in regard to Schlubhut, they have brought out a result, which Friedrich Wilhelm not a little admires at. Schlubhut clearly guilty of the defamation, say they; but he has moneys, landed properties: let him refund, principal and interest;and have, say, three or four years' imprisonment, by way of memento. "Years' imprisonment? Refund? Is theft in the highest quarters a thing to be let off for refunding?" growls his Majesty;and will not confirm this sentence of his Criminal-Collegium;but leaves it till he get to the spot, and see with his own eyes.
Schlubhut, in arrest or mild confinement all this while, ought to be bethinking himself more than he is!