so the heirship fell to us, as the biggest wig in the most benighted Chancery would have to grant;--only the Kaiser will not, never would; the Kaiser plants his armed self on Schlesien, and will hear no pleading. Jagerndorf too, which we purchased with our own money---No more of that; it is too miserable! Very impossible too, while we have Berg and Julich in the wind!--At Liegnitz, Friedrich Wilhelm "reviews the garrison, cavalry and infantry," before starting; then off for Glatz, some sixty miles before we can dine. The goal is towards Bohemia, all this while;and his Majesty, had he liked the mountain-passes, and unlevel ways of the Giant Mountains, might have found a shorter road and a much more picturesque one. Road abounding in gloomy valleys, intricate rock-labyrinths, haunts of Sprite RUBEZAHL, sources of the Elbe and I know not what. Majesty likes level roads, and interesting rock-labyrinths built by man rather than by Nature.
Majesty makes a wide sweep round to the east of all that;leaves the Giant Mountains, and their intricacies, as a blue Sierra far on his right,--had rather see Glatz Fortress than the caverns of the Elbe; and will cross into Bohemia, where the Hills are fallen lowest. At Glatz during dinner, numerous Nobilities are again in waiting. Glatz is in Jagerndorf region; Jagerndorf, which we purchased with our own money, is and remains ours, in spite of the mishaps of the Thirty-Years War;--OURS, the darkest Chancery would be obliged to say, from under the immensest wig! Patience, your Majesty; Time brings roses!--From Glatz, after viewing the works, drilling the guard a little, not to speak of dining, and despatching the Nobilities, his Majesty takes the road again; turns now abruptly westward, across the Hills at their lowest point; into Bohemia, which is close at hand. Lewin, Nachod, these are the Bohemian villages, with their remnant of Czechs; not a prosperous population to look upon:
but it is the Kaiser's own Kingdom: "King of Bohemia" one of his Titles ever since Sigismund SUPER-GRAMMATICAM'S time. And here now, at the meeting of the waters (Elbe one of them, a brawling mountain-stream) is Jaromierz, respectable little Town, with an Imperial Officiality in it,--where the Official Gentlemen meet us all in gala, "Thrice welcome to this Kingdom, your Majesty!"--and signify that they are to wait upon us henceforth, while we do the Kaiser's Kingdom of Bohemia that honor.
It is Tuesday night, 29th July, this first night in Bohemia.
The Official Gentlemen lead his Majesty to superb rooms, new-hung with crimson velvet, and the due gold fringes and tresses,--very grand indeed; but probably not so airy as we wish. "This is the way the Kaiser lodges in his journeys; and your Majesty is to be served like him." The goal of our journey is now within few miles.
Wednesday, 30th July, 1732, his Majesty awakens again, within these crimson-velvet hangings with the gold tresses and fringes, not so airy as he could wish; despatches Grumkow to the Kaiser, who is not many miles off, to signify what honor we would do ourselves.
It was on Saturday last that the Kaiser and Kaiserinn, returning from Karlsbad, illuminated Prag with their serene presence;"attended high-mass, vespers," and a good deal of other worship, as the meagre old Newspapers report for us, on that and the Sunday following. And then, "on Monday, at six in the morning," both the Majesties left Prag, for a place called Chlumetz, southwestward thirty miles off, in the Elbe region, where they have a pretty Hunting Castle; Kaiser intending "sylvan sport for a few days,"says the old rag of a Newspaper, "and then to return to Prag."It is here that Grumkow, after a pleasant morning's drive of thirty miles with the sun on his back, finds Kaiser Karl VI.;and makes his announcements, and diplomatic inquiries what next.
Had Friedrich Wilhelm been in Potsdam or Wusterhausen, and heard that Kaiser Karl was within thirty miles of him, Friedrich Wilhelm would have cried, with open arms, Come, come! But the Imperial Majesty is otherwise hampered; has his rhadamanthine Aulic Councillors, in vast amplitude of wig, sternly engaged in study of the etiquettes: they have settled that the meeting cannot be in Chlumetz; lest it might lead to night's lodgings, and to intricacies. "Let it be at Kladrup," say the Ample-wigged;Kladrup, an Imperial Stud, or Horse-Farm, half a dozen miles from this; where there is room for nothing more than dinner. There let the meeting be, to-morrow at a set hour; and, in the mean time, we will take precautions for the etiquettes. So it is settled, and Grumkow returns with the decision in a complimentary form.
Through Konigsgratz, down the right bank of the Upper Elbe, on the morrow morning, Thursday, 31st July, 1732, Friedrich Wilhelm rushes on towards Kladrup; finds that little village, with the Horse-edifices, looking snug enough in the valley of Elbe;--alights, welcomed by Prince Eugenio von Savoye, with word that the Kaiser is not come, but steadily expected soon. Prinoe Eugenio von Savoye: ACH GOTT, it is another thing, your Highness, than when we met in the Flanders Wars, long since;--at Malplaquet that morning, when your Highness had been to Brussels, visiting your Lady Mother in case of the worst! Slightly grayer your Highness is grown;I too am nothing like so nimble; the great Duke, poor man, is dead!--Prince Eugenio von Savoye, we need not doubt, took snuff, and answered in a sprightly appropriate manner.