Freiherr

“ The present monarch, the witness of my sufferings in my native country, sent me a royal passport to Berlin. The confiscation of my estates was annulled, and my deceased brother, in Prussia, had left my children his heirs.
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I journey, within the Imperial permission, back to my country, from which I have been two-and-forty years expelled! I journey—not as a pardoned malefactor, but as a man whose innocence has been established by his actions, has been proved in his writings, and who is journeying to receive his reward. ”

“ No state is has been managed more like a factory than Prussia since the death of Friedrich William I. As necessary as such a mechanistic administration may be for the physical health, strengthening, and agility of the state, the state when it is handled just in this way, will essentially perish. The principle of the old famous system is to bind everyone to the state through self interest. ”

“ Had an Emperor arisen who would have sympathized with the needs of the German spirit, who would have united himself with the Reformation, and known how to raise it for his own aims in an exalted spirit, he would have had it in his power to form out of the Empire a new state and a united German Church: it was the highest prize that ever was offered to an ambitious prince; and how favourable would have been his position! The nation was deeply roused against the hierarchy and Romish influence, and the Reformation began with a struggle against the highest of the ecclesiastical electors. ”

“ Any man, standing on that throne in the White Saloon of the old Schloss at Berlin, would have to be a good deal considered by his fellow-creatures. Even if we put aside the tremendous international importance of the position of a German Emperor, in that gravely open question of peace or war, he must compel attention as the visible embodiment of a fact, the existence of which those who like it least must still recognize. ”

“ The fact that the man whom we may call the restorer of the German kingdom never sought the Imperial crown seems of itself to point to the reign of the last Emperor before him, even if that Emperor had not been Frederick the Second, as the time when the Empire, as a power in itself, and not simply as a lofty title, a mighty memory, came to an end. Under Charles the Fifth the Empire seems to spring again to the fulness of its ancient power ”

“ Within the Empire, Electors, princes, nobles, and Imperial cities ruled their territories, with many gradations of sovereign rights. The greater princes were real sovereigns, their power only restricted by their states. Noble families, holding temporal principalities in heritable possession, strove incessantly to enlarge their power, to put down the smaller lords round them, and to limit the sovereign rights of the Emperor. In the fifteenth century they had reduced the Imperial power almost to a shadow. ”

“ The answer is that Freytag’s conception of the emperor’s character was hopelessly erroneous. He is obliged to confirm his title to be considered the originator of the idea of a German Empire, but he attributes it to a mere love of pomp and ceremony, a passion for Court millinery. The plain truth is that few monarchs have been simpler in their personal tastes than the Emperor Frederick; the etiquette, the monotony, and the restraint of Court life bored him, and he was never so happy as when he could escape to the congenial society of savants, artists, and writers. ”

“ One feels that these two passages from his own diary—the utterances of November and the reflections of March—show distinctly why the practical rulers, soldiers, and statesmen of Prussia distrusted Frederic. They saw him more eager and strenuous about grasping the imperial dignity than any one else—willing even to break treaties and force Bavaria, Saxony, and Würtemberg into the empire at the cannon’s mouth, and then they heard him lamenting that until he came to the throne there would not be enough “uprightness” to insure The Empress Frederic “constitutional methods.” ”

“ A prince beloved by his people will ever render a nation more happy those he whose only wish is to inspire fear.
The pleasure I received at Berlin was great indeed. When I went to court, the citizens crowded to see me, and when anyone among them said, “That is Trenck,” the rest would cry, “Welcome once more to your country,” while many would reach me their hands, with the tears standing in their eyes. Frequent were the scenes I experienced of this kind. No malefactor would have been so received. It was the reward of innocence; this reward was bestowed throughout the Prussian territories. ”

“ Good grounds would such an emperor have had to have respected old families: it would not have been necessary for him to take the Electoral crown from off their heads, but he might have reduced them to be dignitaries of one great united empire, in which the highest jurisdiction and the power of the army would have been vested in him alone: the want of such a man was for centuries the misfortune of Germany.
It is difficult to do justice to the German princes of the sixteenth century ”

“ But we, the genuine race of ancient Swiss, Have kept our freedom from the first till now, Never to princes have we bowed the knee; Freely we sought protection of the empire. ROSSELMANN. Freely we sought it—freely it was given. 'Tis so set down in Emperor Frederick's charter. STAUFFACHER. For the most free have still some feudal lord. There must be still a chief, a judge supreme, To whom appeal may lie in case of strife. And therefore was it that our sires allowed For what they had recovered from the waste, This honor to the emperor, the lord Of all the German and Italian soil ”

“ During the long reign of Frederick III.—a reign in which the interests of Austria were cherished, and the welfare of the Empire neglected, by that apathetic yet tenacious emperor—the electors once more attempted, in the year 1453, to erect a new central government in place of the emperor, a government which, if not conducted by themselves directly in their capacity of a Kurfürstenverein, should at any rate be under their influence and control. ”

“ I have boldly written, have openly shown, that Trenck was pillaged by you; that he served the house of Austria as a worthy man, with zeal; not in court-martials and committees of inquiry, but fighting for his country, sharing the soldier’s glory, falling the victim of envy and power; falling by the hands of those who are unworthy of judging merit. ”

“ They show the future Emperor Frederick in a new light—no longer as the liberal constitutionalist, the firm admirer of England’s free polity, but as the champion of the divine right of the Hohenzollerns, with a splendid vision of a united Germany under the military protection of Prussia. At the same time there is that qualifying sentence in which the Crown Prince refers to the plan of a coronation at Berlin almost as if he and his wife had been driven to recommend it as the only solution of the King’s difficulties regarding the oath of allegiance. ”

“ Thus died this most extraordinary man, in the thirty-fourth year of his age, to whom nature had denied none of her gifts; who had been the scourge of Bavaria; the terror of France; and who had, with his supposed contemptible pandours, taken above six thousand Prussian prisoners. He lived a tyrant and enemy of men, and died a sanctified impostor.
Such was the state of affairs, as willed by Trenck, when I came to Vienna, in 1759, where I arrived with money and jewels to the amount of twenty thousand florins. ”

“ But do not be content, little sons, with tears. Bring out, develop your own powers, grow great in them, Fritz, Willy. Perhaps the guardian angel of Prussia gazes on you now. Free, then, your people from this humiliation which overpowers it. Seek to shake off France as your grandfather, the Great Elector, did Sweden. Do not forget, my sons, these times. Be men and heroes worthy of the names of Princes and grandsons of Frederick the Great, and for Prussia's sake be willing to confront death as Louis Ferdinand encountered it. ”

“ I soon became painted to the Empress as an arch heretic who never would be faithful to the house of Austria, and only endeavoured to obtain the inheritance of Trenck that he might devote himself to Prussia. This I shall hereafter prove; and display a scene that shall be the disgrace of many, by whom the Empress was induced to harbour unjust suspicions of an able and honest man. I here stand erect and confident before the world; publish the truth, and take everlasting shame to myself, if any man on earth can prove me guilty of one treacherous thought. ”

“ The first thing that strikes one is that Germany's standing army at the beginning of the war was nothing like so perfect a fighting machine as we in this country believed. Although, like all the people with any sense in this country, the German Army knew that a war was coming, the officers and men seem to have set about their work in a singularly amateurish way, judging by the short section of the book devoted to the opening of the war on the Russian Front. And one is pleased to find that von Richthofen has the grace to laugh at himself and his brother-officers for their mistakes. ”

“ It was at this period, under the new Emperor Maximilian, that the memorable attempt was begun, to give a new constitution to the shattered body of the Empire, and with it the possibility of a new life. More than a century elapsed and three generations passed away before the lesser nobility could accustom themselves to the restraint of the new laws; but the princes and cities, however much they might quarrel together, had the greatest interest in enforcing obedience to these laws. ”

“ The fine-gentleman airs, also, of the greater part of his German equals annoyed him: for even at the meeting of his States he had frequent contentions for precedence, especially with the prince's councillors, who were not of the nobility, but wished to assert the privileges of their rank. If there were citizens and noble councillors in the same board, to these in the sittings, a higher position and seniority in office, gave the priority; but at banquets and all representations, according to Imperial decision, the nobleman, as he well knew, had the precedence. ”

“ My ills were increased by a new accident. Soon after the departure of Bernes, the Prussian minister, taking me aside, in the house of the Palatine envoy, M. Becker, proposed my return to Berlin, assured me the King had forgotten all that was past, was convinced of my innocence, that my good fortune would there be certain, and be pledged his honour to recover the inheritance of Trenck. I answered, the favour came too late; I had suffered injustice too flagrant, in my own country, and that I would trust no prince on earth whose will might annihilate all the rights of men. ”

“ His German subjects re-echoed these sentiments, and his uncle, Bishop Otto of Freising, taught that to the Emperor belonged the protection of the whole world. When bitter experience showed him that all his strength and all his faith were of little avail in setting up again a polity which the age had outlived, he had perforce to distinguish between his position as German King and Roman Emperor, and apply one method in breaking down the turbulent feudalism of his northern kingdom and another in checking the growing spirit of municipal independence in the lands beyond the Alps. ”

“ By my writings, I wish to prove to this noble nation on the contrary, that Trenck, for his loyalty deserved compassion, esteem, and honour in his country. This I have already done in the former part of my history. The dead Trenck can speak no more; but it is the duty of the living ever to speak in defence of right.
Trenck wrote his own history while he was confined in the arsenal at Vienna; and, in the last two sheets he openly related the manner in which he had been treated by the council of war, of which Count Loewenwalde, his greatest enemy, was president. ”

“ As my son and my cousin Ludwig had no expectation of another attack, they came over to me early in the morning; then the burgomaster and certain councillors went out to the enemy and inquired what their intentions were, as there was no one in the castle but women and children, they also said that the domain was under process and Imperial neutrality. Thereupon the bailiff from Harburg made reply that they had come yesterday and again to-day with good and friendly intentions, to claim their lord's rights of supremacy, but they had been fired at, whereby great damage had been done to them. ”

“ My good faith to the King had been too ill repaid; my talents might gain me bread in any part of the world, and I would not again subject myself to the danger of unmerited imprisonment.
His persuasions were strong, but ineffectual. “My dear Trenck,” said he, “God is my judge that my intentions are honest; I will pledge myself, that my sovereign will insure your fortune: you do not know Vienna; you will lose all by the suits in which you are involved, and will be persecuted because you do not carry a rosary.”
How often have I repented I did not then return to Berlin! ”

“ You forget the Sacred Presence. There is only one Emperor—he whom her Majesty permits to execute her will over the black-haired people. The vain assumption of Imperial titles by these foreign bandits is deeply offensive to the Court of Heaven. You understand? All such upstarts exist merely by the tolerance of her Majesty. We will speak of this person as the Viceroy of the German Province.’
I could scarcely resist a smile as I bowed apologetically. I imagined myself repeating this conversation to Wilhelm II., a ruler not inclined to take too low an estimate of his own consequence. ”