Томас Карлейль - History of Friedrich II of Prussia — Volume 09

That is Busching's version of the story; no doubt substantially correct; of which there are traces in other quarters,—for it went farther than Ruppin; and the Crown-Prince had like to have got into trouble from it. "Here is piety!" said Rumor, carrying it to Tobacco-Parliament. The Crown-Prince plaintively assures Grumkow that it was the Officers, and that they got punished for it. A likely story, the Prince's!

"When King Friedrich, in his old days, recounted this after dinner, in his merry tone, he was well pleased that the guests, and even the pages and valets behind his back, laughed aloud at it." Not a pious old King, Doctor, still less an orthodox one! The Doctor continues: "In a like style, at Nauen, where part of his regiment lay, he had—by means of Herr von der Groben, his First-Lieutenant," much a comrade of his, as we otherwise perceive—"the Diaconus of Nauen and his Wife hunted out of bed, and thrown into terror of their lives, one night:"—offence of the Diaconus not specified. "Nay he himself once pitched his gold-headed stick through Salpius the Church Inspector's window,"—offence again not specified, or perhaps merely for a little artillery practice?—"and the throw was so dexterous that it merely made a round hole in the glass: stick was lying on the floor; and the Prince," on some excuse or other, "sent for it next morning." "Margraf Heinrich of Schwedt," continues the Doctor, very trustworthy on points of fact, "was a diligent helper in such operations. Kaiserling," whom we shall hear of, "First-Lieutenant von der Groben," these were prime hands; "Lieutenant Buddenbrock [old Feldmarschall's son] used, in his old days, when himself grown high in rank and dining with the King, to be appealed to as witness for the truth of these stories." [Busching, Beitrage zu der Lebensgeschichte denkwurdiger Personen, v. 19-21. Vol. v.—wholly occupied with Friedrich II. King of Prussia (Halle, 1788),—is accessible in French and other languages; many details, and (as Busching's wont is) few or none not authentic, are to be found in it; a very great secret spleen against Friedrich is also traceable,—for which the Doctor may have had his reasons, not obligatory upon readers of the Doctor. The truth is, Friedrich never took the least special notice of him: merely employed and promoted him, when expedient for both parties; and he really was a man of considerable worth, in an extremely crude form.]

These are the two Incidents at Ruppin, in such light as they have. And these are all. Opulent History yields from a ton of broken nails these two brass farthings, and shuts her pocket on us again. A Crown-Prince given to frolic, among other things; though aware that gravity would beseem him better. Much gay bantering humor in him, cracklings, radiations,—which he is bound to keep well under cover, in present circumstances.

For three years past there has been much rumor over Germany, of a strange affair going on in the remote Austrian quarter, down in Salzburg and its fabulous Tyrolese valleys. Salzburg, city and territory, has an Archbishop, not theoretically Austrian, but sovereign Prince so styled; it is from him and his orthodoxies, and pranks with his sovereign crosier, that the noise originates. Strange rumor of a body of the population discovered to be Protestant among the remote Mountains, and getting miserably ill-used, by the Right Reverend Father in those parts. Which rumor, of a singular, romantic, religious interest for the general Protestant world, proves to be but too well founded. It has come forth in the form of practical complaint to the CORPUS EVANGELICORUM at the Diet, without result from the CORPUS; complaint to various persons;—in fine, to his Majesty Friedrich Wilhelm, WITH result.

With result at last; actual "Emigration of the Salzburgers:" and Germany—in these very days while the Crown-Prince is at Berlin betrothing himself, and Franz of Lorraine witnessing the EXERCITIA and wonders there—sees a singular phenomenon of a touching idyllic nature going on; and has not yet quite forgotten it in our days. Salzburg Emigration was all in motion, flowing steadily onwards, by various routes, towards Berlin, at the time the Betrothal took place; and seven weeks after that event, when the Crown-Prince had gone to Ruppin, and again could only hear of it, the First Instalment of Emigrants arrived bodily at the Gates of Berlin, "30th April, at four in the afternoon;" Majesty himself, and all the world going out to witness it, with something of a poetic: almost of a psalmist feeling, as well as with a practical on the part of his Majesty. First Instalment this; copiously followed by others, all that year; and flowing on, in smaller rills and drippings, for several years more, till it got completed. A notable phenomenon, full of lively picturesque and other interest to Brandenburg and Germany;—which was not forgotten by the Crown-Prince in coming years, as we shall transiently find; nay which all Germany still remembers, and even occasionally sings. Of which this is in brief the history.

The Salzburg Country, northeastern slope of the Tyrol (Donau draining that side of it, Etsch or Adige the Italian side), is celebrated by the Tourist for its airy beauty, rocky mountains, smooth green valleys, and swift-rushing streams; perhaps some readers have wandered to Bad-Gastein, or Ischl, in these nomadic summers; have looked into Salzburg, Berchtesgaden, and the Bavarian-Austrian boundary-lands; seen the wooden-clock makings, salt-works, toy-manufactures, of those simple people in their slouch-hats; and can bear some testimony to the phenomena of Nature there. Salzburg is the Archbishop's City, metropolis of his bit of sovereignty that then was. [Tolerable description of it in the Baron Riesbeck's Travels through Germany (London, 1787, Translation by Maty, 3 vols. 8vo), i. 124-222;—whose details otherwise, on this Emigration business, are of no authenticity or value. A kind of Play-actor and miscellaneous Newspaper-man in that time (not so opulent to his class as ours is); who takes the title of "Baron" on this occasion of coming, out with a Book of Imaginary "Travels." Had personally lived, practising the miscellaneous arts, about Lintz and Salzburg,—and may be heard on the look of the Country, if on little else.] A romantic City, far off among its beautiful Mountains, shadowing (itself in the Salza River, which rushes down into the Inn, into the Donau, now becoming great with the tribute of so many valleys. Salzburg we have not known hitherto except as the fabulous resting-place of Kaiser Barbarossa: but we are now slightly to see it in a practical light; and mark how the memory of Friedrich Wilhelm makes an incidental lodgment for itself there.

It is well known there was extensive Protestantism once in those countries. Prior to the Thirty-Years War, the fair chance was, Austria too would all become Protestant; an extensive minority among all ranks of men in Austria too, definable as the serious intelligence of mankind in those countries, having clearly adopted it, whom the others were sure to follow. In all ranks of men; only not in the highest rank, which was pleased rather to continue Official and Papal. Highest rank had its Thirty-Years War, "its sleek Fathers Lummerlein and Hyacinth in Jesuit serge, its terrible Fathers Wallenstein in chain-armor;" and, by working late and early then and afterwards, did manage at length to trample out Protestantism,—they know with what advantage by this time. Trample out Protestantism; or drive it into remote nooks, where under sad conditions it might protract an unnoticed existence. In the Imperial Free-Towns, Ulm, Augsburg, and the like, Protestantism continued, and under hard conditions contrives to continue: but in the country parts, except in unnoticed nooks, it is extinct. Salzburg Country is one of those nooks; an extensive Crypto-Protestantism lodging, under the simple slouch-hats, in the remote valleys there. Protestantism peaceably kept concealed, hurting nobody; wholesomely forwarding the wooden-clock manufacture, and arable or grazier husbandries, of those poor people. More harmless sons of Adam, probably, did not breathe the vital air, than those dissentient Salzburgers; generation after generation of them giving offence to no creature.