Thomas Carlyle

“ Friedrich, readers can observe, is not uplifted with his greatness. He has been too much beaten and bruised to be anything but modestly thankful for getting out of such a deadly clash of chaotic swords. Seems to have little pride even in his "Five Victories;" or hides it well. Talks not overmuch about these things; talks of them, so far as we can hear, with his old comrades only, in praise of THEIR prowesses; as a simple human being, not as a supreme of captains; and at times acknowledges, in a fine sincere way, the omnipotence of Luck in matters of War. ”

“ Leave for Plombieres,—leave in the angrily contemptuous shape, "Go, then, forever and a day!"—Voltaire can at once have: but to get it in the friendly shape, and as if for a time only? His prospects at Paris, at Versailles, are none of the best; to return as if dismissed will never do! Would fain not go, withal;—and has to diplomatize at Potsdam, by D'Argens, De Prades, and at Paris simultaneously, by Richelieu, D'Argenson and friends. He is greatly to be pitied;—even Friedrich pities him, the martyr of bodily ailments and of spiritual ”

“ In the world are many opinions about Friedrich. In Austria, for instance, what an opinion; sinister, gloomy in the extreme: or in England, which derives from Austria,—only with additional dimness, and with gloomy new provocations of its own before long! Many opinions about Friedrich, all dim enough: but this, that he is a very demon for fighting, and the stoutest King walking the Earth just now, may well be a universal one. A man better not be meddled with, if he will be at peace, as he professes to wish being. ”

“ For which, as appears, his Majesty was very grateful to the Trismegistus of men.
Voltaire's flatteries to Friedrich, in those scattered little Billets with their snatches of verse, are the prettiest in the world,—and approach very near to sincerity, though seldom quite attaining it. Something traceable of false, of suspicious, feline, nearly always, in those seductive warblings; which otherwise are the most melodious bits of idle ingenuity the human brain has ever spun from itself. ”

“ Till, as will be seen, the sensitive Voltaire could endure it no longer; but had to explode upon this big Bully (accident lending a spark) ; to go off like a Vesuvius of crackers, fire-serpents and sky-rockets; envelop the red wig, and much else, in delirious conflagration;—and produce the catastrophe of this Berlin Drama.
D'Argens, poor dissolute creature, is the best of the French lot. He has married, after so many temporary marriages with Actresses, one Actress in permanence, Mamsell Cochois, a patient kind being; and settled now, at Potsdam here, into perfectly composed household life. ”

“ Friedrich's connection with Sweden, which he had been tightening lately by a Treaty of Alliance, came in the long-run to nothing for him, on the Swedish side; and on the Russian has already created umbrages, kindled abstruse suspicions, indignations,—Russian Excellency Gross, abruptly, at Berlin, demanding horses, not long since, and posting home without other leave-taking, to the surprise of mankind;—Russian Czarina evidently in the sullens against Friedrich, this long while; dull impenetrable clouds of anger lodging yonder, boding him no good. ”

“ Oh, M. de Voltaire!—The practical purport, to Niece Denis, always is: Keep my retreat to Paris open; in the name of Heaven, no obstruction that way!
Miserable indeed; a man fatally unfit for his present element! But he has Two considerable Sedatives, all along; two, and no third visible to me. Sedative FIRST: that, he can, at any time, quit this illustrious Tartarus-Elysium, the envy of mankind;—and indeed, practically, he is always as if on the slip; thinking to be off shortly, for a time, or in permanence; can be off at once, if things grow too bad. ”

“ Eight of the Eleven Peace Years are gone in these courses. The next three, still silent and smooth to the outward eye, were defaced by subterranean mutterings, electric heralds of coming storm. "Meaning battle and wrestle again?" thinks Friedrich, listening intent. A far other than welcome message to Friedrich. A message ominous; thrice unwelcome, not to say terrible. Requires to be scanned with all one's faculty; to be interpreted; to be obeyed, in spite of one's reluctances and lazinesses. ”

“ Voltaire's Visit lasted, in all, about Thirty-two Months; and is divisible into Three Acts or Stages. The first we have seen: how it commenced in brightness as of the sun, and ended, by that Hirsch business, in whirlwinds of smoke and soot,—Voltaire retiring, on his passionate prayer, to that silent Country-house which he calls the Marquisat; there to lie in hospital, and wash himself a little, and let the skies wash themselves. ”

“ But at no time can the painful critic call it cynicism as of OTHER than an observer; always a kind of vinegar cleanness in it, EXCEPT in theory. Cynicism of an impartial observer in a dirty element; observer epically sensible (when provoked to it) of the brutal contemptibilities which lie in Human Life, alongside of its big struttings and pretensions. In Friedrich's utterances there is that kind of cynicism undeniable;—and yet he had a modesty almost female in regard to his own person; "no servant having ever seen him in an exposed state." ”

“ Royal Highness of Cumberland is a valiant man, knowing of War little more than the White Horse of Hanover does;—certain of ruin again, at the hands of Marechal de Saxe. So think many, and have their dismal misgivings. "Saxe having eaten Bergen-op-Zoom before our eyes, what can withstand the teeth of Saxe?" In fact, there remains only Maestricht, of considerable; and then Holland is as good as his! As for King Louis, glory, with funds running out, and the pot ceasing to boil, has lost its charm to an afflicted France and him. ”

“ The Hirsch business having blown over, as all things do, Voltaire resumed his place among the Court-Planets, and did his revolutions; striving to forget that there ever was a Hirsch, or a soot-explosion of that nature. In words nobody reminded him of it, the King least of all: and by degrees matters were again tolerably glorious, and all might have gone well enough; though the primal perfect splendor, such fuliginous reminiscence being ineffaceable, never could be quite re-attained. The diamond Cross of Merit, the Chamberlain gold Key, hung bright upon the man; a man the admired of men. ”

“ To poor me, even in the Potsdam tempests, it is possible: what ugliest day is not beautiful that sees a stone or two added there!—Daily Voltaire sees himself at work on his SIECLE, on those fine terms; trowel in one hand, weapon of war in the other. And does actually accomplish it, in the course of this Year 1751,—with a great deal of punctuality and severe painstaking; which readers of our day, fallen careless of the subject, are little aware of, on Voltaire's behalf. ”

“ For Friedrich himself Voltaire has, with touches of real love coming out now and then, a very sincere admiration mixed with fear; and delights in shining to him, and being well with him, as the greatest pleasure now left in life. Besides the King, he had society enough, French in type, and brilliant enough: plenty of society ”

“ In the long-run a graver face would have been of better augury. King Friedrich's soldiers, one observes, on the eve of battle, settle their bits of worldly business; and wind up, many of them, with a hoarse whisper of prayer. Oliver Cromwell's soldiers did so, Gustaf Adolf's; in fact, I think all good soldiers: Roucoux with a Prince Karl, Lauffeld with a Duke of Cumberland; you gain your Roucoux, your Lauffeld, Human Stupidity permitting: but one day you fall in with Human Intelligence, in an extremely grave form;—and your 'ELAN,' elastic outburst, the quickest in Nature, what becomes of it? ”

“ So that, except as consolatory scolding-stock for the rest of his life, Voltaire got nothing of his 76 pounds 10s., "with jewels and snuffbox," always lying ready in the Trunk for him. And it had, I suppose, at the long last, to go by RIGHT OF WINDFALL to somebody or other:—unless, perhaps, it still lie, overwhelmed under dust and lumber, in the garrets of the old Rathhaus yonder, waiting for a legal owner? What became of it, no man knows; but that no doit of it ever went Freytag's or King Friedrich's way, is abundantly evident. ”

“ In 1751 and 1752, the darling Project met cross tides, foul winds, political whirlpools ("Such a set are those German Princes!") —and swam, indomitable, though near desperate, as Project seldom did; till happily, in 1753, it sank drowned:—and left his Grace of Newcastle asking, "Well-a-day! And is not England drowned too?" We hope not.
"Owing mainly to Friedrich's opposition!" exclaimed Noodle and the Political Circles. ”

“ Perhaps the time for Montesquieu's aphorism, 'Happy the People whose Annals are blank in History-Books!' The Prussian Antiquary, had he once got any image formed to himself of Friedrich, and of Friedrich's History in its human lineaments and organic sequences, will glean many memorabilia in those Years: which his readers then (and not till then) will be able to intercalate in their places, and get human good of. ”

“ Great men, all obsolete now, though then admired to infinitude, some of them: 'You may abuse me,' said the King to some stranger arrived in Berlin; 'you may abuse me, and perhaps here and there get praise by doing it: but I advise you not to doubt of Lieberkuhn [the fashionable Doctor] in any company in Berlin,'" [Hanway, ii. 190, 202, &c.] —How fashionable are men!
One Collini, a young Italian, quite new in Berlin, chanced also to be at the Carrousel, or at the latter half of it,—though by no means in quest of such objects just at present, poor young fellow! ”

“ Partly it is our Books (the Prussian Dryasdust reaching his acme on those occasions) , but in part too it is the Events themselves, that are small and want importance; that have fallen dead to us, in the huge new Time and its uproars. Events not of flagrant notability (like battles or war-passages) , to bridle Dryasdust, and guide him in some small measure. Events rather which, except as characteristic of one memorable Man and King, are mostly now of no memorability whatever. Crowd all these indiscriminately into sacks, and shake them out pell-mell on us: that is Dryasdust's sweet way. ”

“ But, on arriving, you exacted of me, in a rather singular manner, Not to take Freron to write me news from Paris; and I had the weakness, or the complaisance, to grant you this, though it is not for you to decide what persons I shall take into my service. D'Arnaud had faults towards you; a generous man would have pardoned them; a vindictive man hunts down those whom he takes to hating. In a word, though to me D'Arnaud had done nothing, it was on your account that he had to go. ”

“ Friedrich has now, by his Second Silesian War, achieved Greatness: 'Friedrich the Great;' expressly so denominated, by his People and others. The struggle upwards is the Romance; your hero once wedded,—to GLORY, or whoever the Bride may be,—the Romance ends. Precise critics do object, That there may still lie difficulties, new perils and adventures ahead:—which proves conspicuously true in this case of ours. And accordingly, our Book not being a Romance but a History, let us, with all fidelity, look out what these are, and how they modify our Royal Gentleman who has got his wedding done. ”

“ For men are very porous; weighty secrets oozing out of them, like quicksilver through clay jars. I could guess, Hirsch, by way of galling insolent Ephraim, had blabbed something: and in the course of five days, it has got to the very King,—this Kammerherr Voltaire being such a favorite and famous man as never was; the very bull's-eye of all kinds of Berlin gossip in these days. 'Hm, Steuer-Scheine, and the Jew Hirsch to be Court-Jeweller, you say?' thinks the King, that Sunday night; but locks the rumor in his Royal mind, he, for his part ”

“ Curious, and in some sort touching, to observe how that old original Life-Program still re-emerges on this King: "Something of melodious possible in one's poor life, is not there? A Life to the Practical Duties, yes; but to the Muses as well!"—Of Friedrich's success in his Law-Reforms, in his Husbandries, Commerces and Furtherances, conspicuously great as it was, there is no possibility of making careless readers cognizant at this day. ”

“ A great character, great wisdom, lasting great results to his Country, readers do not trace in Kaunitz's diplomacies,—only temporary great results, or what he and the by-standers thought such, to Kaunitz himself. He was the Supreme Jove, we perceive, in that extinct Olympus; and regards with sublime pity, not unallied to contempt, all other diplomatic beings. A man sparing of words, sparing even of looks; will hardly lift his eyelids for your sake,—will lift perhaps his chin, in slight monosyllabic fashion, and stalk superlatively through the other door. ”

“ Not very old, we will believe: but as to innocence!—For certain, he is named Abraham Hirsch, or Hirschel: a Berlin Jew of the Period; whom one inclines to figure as a florid oily man, of Semitic features, in the prime of life; who deals much in jewels, moneys, loans, exchanges, all kinds of Jew barter; whether absolutely in old clothes, we do not know—certainly not unless there is a penny to be turned. The man is of oily Semitic type, not old in years,—there is a fraternal Hirsch, and also a paternal, who is head of the firm;—and this young one seems to be already old in Jew art. ”

“ In Voltaire's Correspondence there is frequent mention of him; not with any love, but with a certain secret respect, rather inclined to be disrespectful, if it durst or could: the eloquent vocal individual not quite at ease beside the more silent thinking and acting one. What we know is, Friedrich greatly loved the man. There is some straggle of CORRESPONDENCE between Friedrich and him left; but it is worth nothing; gives no testimony of that, or of anything else noticeable:—and that is the one fact now almost alone significant of Rothenburg. ”

“ Can money and life be spent better? I have yet conquered next to nothing for the Cause of Liberty and myself!' But the Sea-Powers were tired of it; the Dutch especially, who had been hoisted with such difficulty, tended strongly, New Stadtholder notwithstanding, to plump down again into stable equilibrium on the broad-bottom principle. Huddle up the matter; end it, well if you can; any way end it. The Treaty contained many Articles, now become forgettable to mankind. There is only One Article, and the Want of One, which shall concern us in this place. ”

“ Really loves Friedrich, they say; the only Frenchman of them that does. Has abundance of light sputtery wit, and Provencal fire and ingenuity; no ill-nature against any man. Never injures anybody, nor lies at all about anything. A great friend of fine weather; regrets, of his inheritances in Provence, chiefly one item, and this not overmuch,—the bright southern sun. ”