King Wilhelm I of Prussia

“ Unconsciously, not thinking of Devil's-worship, or spiritual dry-rot, but of money chiefly, and led by Nature and the ways she has with us, it was the task of Friedrich Wilhelm's life to bring about this beneficent result in all departments of Prussian Business, great and little, public and even private. Year after year, he brings it to perfection; pushes it unweariedly forward every day and hour. So that he has Prussia, at last, all a Prussia made after his own image; the most thrifty, hardy, rigorous and Spartan country any modern King ever tied over ”

“ Friedrich Wilhelm's Directorium, well-drilled Prussian Downing Street, every man steady at his duty, and no wind to be wasted where silence was better, did likewise very authentically remain,—and still remains. Nothing of genuine and human that Friedrich Wilhelm did but remained and remains an inheritance, not the smallest item of IT lost or losable;—and the rude foolish Boor-King (singular enough!) is found to be the only one that has gained by the game. ”

“ Friedrich Wilhelm has a dumb rough wit and mockery, of that kind, on many occasions; not without geniality in its Brobdignag exaggeration and simplicity. Like a wild bear of the woods taking his sport; with some sense of humor in the rough skin of him. Very capable of seeing through sumptuous costumes; and respectful of realities alone. Not in French sumptuosity, but in native German thrift, does this King see his salvation; so as Nature constructed him: and the world which has long lost its Spartans, will see again an original North-German Spartan ”

“ This is the Brandenburg Spartan King; acquainted with National Economics. Alone of existing Kings he lays by money annually; and is laying by many other and far more precious things, for Prussia and the little Boy he has here.
Friedrich Wilhelm's passion for drilling, recruiting and perfecting his army attracted much notice: laughing satirical notice; in the hundred months of common rumor, which he regarded little; and notice iracund and minatory, when it led him into collision with the independent portions of mankind, now and then. ”

“ WILLIAM I. (1797-1888) , king of Prussia and German emperor, was the second son of Frederick William III. of Prussia and Louise, a princess of Mecklenburg-Strelitz. He was born at Berlin on the 22nd of March 1797, and received the names of Wilhelm Friedrich Ludwig. He was a delicate child and had to be carefully nurtured. His constitution, however, was sound, and he became one of the most vigorous men in Germany. ”

“ There is a third worth both the others, could it be got done: To detach Friedrich Wilhelm from those dangerous Hanover Confederates, and bring him gently over to ourselves. He has an army of 60,000, in perfect equipment, and money to maintain them so. Against us or for us,—60,000 PLUS or 60,000 MINUS;—that will mean 120,000 fighting men; a most weighty item in any field there is like to be. If it lie in the power of human art, let us gain this wild irritated King of Prussia. ”

“ It has been said that "the egg from which was hatched the German Empire was laid on the battlefield of Sedan." But, not to speak of the offer of the Imperial Crown to King Frederick Wilhelm by the Frankfort Parliament in 1848, Bismarck more than a year before the Austro-Prussian war had spoken to Lord Augustus Loftus, then British Ambassador to Prussia, of his ultimate intention that the King of Prussia should become the Emperor of an united Germany. ”

“ Friedrich Wilhelm, with this fine project in his head, drove home to Potsdam;—and there laid about him, on the poor Crown-Prince, in the way we have seen; terrifying Queen and Princess, who are at Berlin till Christmas and the Carnival be over. Friedrich Wilhelm means to see the Polish Majesty again before long,—probably so soon as this of Weissenfels is fairly got through the Female Parliament, where it is like there will be difficulties.
Christmas came to Berlin, and the King with it; who did the gayeties for a week or two, and spoke nothing about business to his Female Parliament. ”

“ We Americans have no use for Kings; and we have ideas as to popular government that King Wilhelm of Prussia, later Emperor of Germany, would never understand. But let us consider that it would be well for us if we had a few statesmen, among those who are governing us on speculation, who would look on their responsibilities as this dead European monarch did on his. ”

“ Friedrich Wilhelm's History is one of ECONOMICS; which study, so soon as there are Kings again in this world, will be precious to them. In that happy state of matters, Friedrich Wilhelm's History will well reward study; and teach by example, in a very simple and direct manner. In what is called the Political, Diplomatic, "Honor-to-be" department, there is not, nor can ever be, much to be said of him; this Economist King having always kept himself well at home, and looked steadily to his own affairs. So that for the present he has, as a King, next to nothing of what is called History ”

“ For there is a grand thing in the wind. Something truly sublime, of the scenic-military kind, which has not yet got a name; but shall soon have a world-wide one,—"Camp of Muhlberg," "Camp of Radewitz," or however to be named,—which his Polish Majesty will hold in those Saxon parts, in a month or two. A thing that will astonish all the world, we may hope; and where the King and Prince of Prussia are to attend as chief guests.
It was during this brief absence in February, or directly after Friedrich Wilhelm had returned, that Queen Sophie had that fit of real sickness we spoke of. ”

“ Hope, we say; for the King is in his own and his people's eyes, to some indefinite extent, always himself the supreme ultimate Interpreter, and grand living codex, of the Laws,—always to some indefinite extent;—and there remains for a subject man nothing but the appeal to PHILIP SOBER, in some rash cases! On the whole, however, Friedrich Wilhelm is by no means a lawless Monarch; nor are his Prussians slaves by any means: they are patient, stout-hearted, subject men, with a very considerable quantity of radical fire, very well covered in ”

“ But Friedrich Wilhelm was vigilance itself; and he had his Anhalt-Dessaus with him, his Borcks, Buddenbrocks, Finkensteins, veteran men and captains, who had learned their art under Marlborough and Eugene. The Lion King's fierce sallies, and desperate valor, could not avail. Point after point was lost for him. Koppen, a Prussian Lieutenant-Colonel, native to the place, who has bathed in those waters in his youth, remembers that, by wading to the chin, you could get round the extremity of Charles's main outer line. ”

“ King August let Natzmer go; Suhm returned to his post; [Pollnitz, ii. 254.] and things hustled themselves into some uneasy posture of silence again;—uneasy to the sensitive fancy of Friedrich Wilhelm above all. This is his worst collision with his Neighbor of Saxony; and springing from one's Hobby again!—
These sorrows, the death of George I., with anxieties as to George II. and the course he might take; all this, it was thought, preyed upon his Majesty's spirits;—Wilhelmina says it was "the frequent carousals with Seckendorf," and an affair chiefly of the royal digestive-apparatus. ”

“ For it was the signal of a similar set of loud complaints, and menacing remonstrances (with little twinges of fulfilment here and there) from all quarters of Germany; a tempest of trouble and public indignation rising everywhere, and raining in upon Friedrich Wilhelm and this unfortunate Hobby of his. No riding of one's poor Hobby in peace henceforth. Friedrich Wilhelm always answered, what was only superficially the fact, That HE knew nothing of these violences and acts of ill-neighborship; he, a just King, was sorrier than any man to hear of them ”

“ Emperor Francis had by his side respectively the Empress Elizabeth and the Grande-Duchesse d’Oldenbourg. A little further on was the charming Marie, Duchesse de Weimar, and by her side the Prince Guillaume de Prusse [the future Wilhelm I. King of Prussia and German Emperor] . The ‘immense’ King of Würtemberg looks, as usual, pre-occupied. The table, in front of him, has been cut away to accommodate his portly person. A glance at him causes one to speculate upon the potentiality of nature in stretching the human skin. King Frederick of Denmark supplies an instance to the contrary ”

“ But perhaps, by that method the mingled laughter and horror will modify itself a little. What we can well say is, that pity also ought not to be wanting. The next six months were undoubtedly by far the wretchedest of Friedrich Wilhelm's life. The poor King, except that he was not conscious of intending wrong, but much the reverse, walked in the hollow night of Gehenna, all that while, and was often like to be driven mad by the turn things had taken.
Here is scene first: Wilhelmina reports his Majesty's arrival that Sunday afternoon, to the following effect ”

“ For this was a King come into the world with quite other aims than that of wearing big perukes, and, regardless of expense, playing burst-frog to the ox of Versailles, which latter is itself perhaps a rather useless animal. Of Friedrich Wilhelm's taxes upon wigs; of the old "Wig-inspectors," and the feats they did, plucking off men's periwigs on the street, to see if the government-stamp were there, and to discourage wiggery, at least all but the simple scratch or useful Welsh-wig, among mankind: of these, and of other similar things, I could speak ”

“ These remarks of a certain Editor are perhaps worth adding:—
"Friedrich Wilhelm, King of Prussia, did not set up for a Pestalozzi; and the plan of Education for his Son is open to manifold objections. Nevertheless, as Schoolmasters go, I much prefer him to most others we have at present. The wild man had discerned, with his rugged natural intelligence (not wasted away in the idle element of speaking and of being spoken to, but kept wholesomely silent for most part) , That human education is not, and cannot be, a thing of VOCABLES. That it is a thing of earnest facts ”

“ If England go right for the Kaiser, well, and his Majesty is in good-humor with Queen, with Crown-Prince and Wilhelmina. If England go wrong for the Kaiser, dark clouds gather on the royal brow, in the royal heart; explode in thunder-storms; and at length crockery goes flying through the rooms, blows descend on the poor Prince's back; and her Majesty is in tears, mere Chaos come again. For as a general rule, unless the English Negotiation have some prospering fit, and produce exceptional phenomena, Friedrich Wilhelm, ever loyal in heart, stands steadfast by his Kaiser ”

“ Your Treasury is empty (nothing in it but those foolish 200,000 English guineas, and the passionate cry for more) : and your Army is not trained as this Prussian one; cannot keep its ground against this one. Of all those long-headed Potentates, simple Friedrich Wilhelm, son of Nature, who had the honesty to do what Nature taught him, has come out, gainer. You all laughed at him as a fool: do you begin to see now who was wise, who fool? He has an Army that "advances on you with glittering musketry, steady as on the parade-ground, and pours out fire like one continuous thunder-peal;" ”

“ Perhaps you will know these and many more things about him when you see him in Boston, New York, San Francisco or at the Chicago World’s Fair.
A STATELY RIDER.
“Will he be there?”
As likely as not.
“But who is he?”
Ah! now you ask something. He is Master Friedrich Wilhelm, the Crown Prince of Germany. If he live long enough, he will do something more than hold the reins of that pretty, proud white pony; he will hold the reins of Prussia, one of the most powerful nations of Europe. ”

“ Truly he is not of constitutional turn; cares little about the wigs and formalities of justice, pressing on so fiercely towards the essence and fact of it; he has been known to tear asunder the wigs and formalities, in a notably impatient manner, when they stood between him and the fact. But Prussia has its Laws withal, tolerably abundant, tolerably fixed and supreme: and the meanest Prussian man that could find out a definite Law, coming athwart Friedrich Wilhelm's wrath, would check Friedrich Wilhelm in mid-volley,—or hope with good ground to do it. ”

“ That, probably for any Nation in the long-run, and certainly for the Prussian Nation straightway, life or death depends on the Army: Friedrich Wilhelm's head, in an inarticulate manner, was full of this just notion; and all his life was spent in organizing it to a practical fact. The more of potential battle, the more of life is in us: a MAXIMUM of potential battle, therefore; and let it be the OPTIMUM in quality! How Friedrich Wilhelm cared, day and night, with all his heart and all his soul, to bring his Army to the supreme pitch, we have often heard ”

“ The arbitrary threat of the Emperor was badly received in the other federated states, whose newspapers pointed out that he had exceeded his authority. It gave the Socialists an opportunity to attack Emperor Wilhelm on the floor of the Reichstag. Four days after this threat was made, an orator of the Socialist party declared
"We salute the imperial words as the confession, full of weight and coming from a competent source, that annexation to Prussia is the heaviest punishment that one can threaten to impose upon a {15} people for its resistance against Germany. ”

“ It is far from my intentions to disturb the confidence of the people in the stability of our Constitution by any attempts to extend the rights of the Crown. My existing prerogatives, as laid down by our Constitution, suffice to ensure the due measure of monarchical influence which Prussia requires, according to its historical development, its present composition, its position in the Empire, and the temperament and habits of its own people. ”