History of Friedrich II of Prussia (All 21 Volumes). Томас Карлейль

and from time to time the military implements brandishing themselves, though loath generally to draw blood! For a hundred and sixteen years:—but the Final Bargain, lying on parchment in the archives of both parties, and always acknowledged as final, was to this effect: "You serene Neuburg keep what you have got; we serene Brandenburg the like: Cleve with detached pertinents ours; Julich-and-Berg mainly yours. And let us live in perpetual amity on that footing. And, note only furthermore, when our Line fails, the whole of these fine Duchies shall be yours: if your Line fail, ours." That was the plain bargain, done solemnly in 1624, and again more solemnly and brought to parchment with signature in 1666, as Friedrich Wilhelm knows too well. And now the very case is about to occur; this old man, childless at seventy, is the last of the Neuburgs. May not one reasonably pretend that a bargain should be kept?

      "Tush," answers old Karl Philip always: "Bargain?" And will not hear reason against himself on the subject; not even when the Kaiser asks him—as the Kaiser really did, after that Wusterhausen Treaty, but could get only negatives. Karl Philip has no romantic ideas of justice, or of old parchments tying up a man. Karl Philip had one Daughter by that dear Radzivil Princess, Sobieski's stolen Bride; and he never, by the dear Radzivil or her dear successor, [See Buchholz, i. 61 n.] had any son, or other daughter that lived to wed. One Daughter, we say; a first-born, extremely precious to him. Her he married to the young fortunate Sulzbach Cousin, Karl Joseph Heir-Apparent of Sulzbach, who, by all laws, was to succeed in the Pfalz as well—Karl Philip thinking furthermore, "He and she, please Heaven, shall hold fast by Dusseldorf too, and that fine Julich-and-Berg Territory, which is mine. Bargains?" Such was, and is, the old man's inflexible notion. Alas, this one Daughter died lately, and her Husband lately; [She in 1728; he in 1729: their eldest Daughter was born 1721 (Hubner, t. 140; Michaelis, ii. 101, 123).] again leaving only Daughters; will not this change the notion? Not a whit—though Friedrich Wilhelm may have fondly hoped it by possibility might, Not a whit: Karl Philip cherishes his little Grand-daughter, now a child of nine, as he did her Mother and her Mother's Mother; hopes one day to see her wedded (as he did) to a new Heir-Apparent of the Pfalz and Sulzbach; and, for her behoof, will hold fast by Berg and Julich, and part with no square inch of it for any parchment.

      What is Friedrich Wilhelm to do? Seek justice for himself by his 80,000 men and the iron ramrods? Apparently he will not get it otherwise. He is loath to begin that terrible game. If indeed Europe do take fire, as is likely at Seville or elsewhere—But in the meanwhile how happy if negotiation would but serve! Alas, and if the Kaiser, England; Holland and the others, could be brought to guarantee me—as indeed they should (to avoid a CASUS BELLI), and some of them have said they will! Friedrich Wilhelm tried this Julich-and-Berg Problem by the pacific method, all his life; strenuously, and without effect. Result perhaps was coming nevertheless; at the distance of another hundred years!—One thing I know: whatever rectitude and patience, whatever courage, perseverance, or other human virtue he has put into this or another matter, is not lost; not it nor any fraction of it, to Friedrich Wilhelm and his sons' sons; but will well avail him and them, if not soon, then later, if not in Berg and Julich, then in some other quarter of the Universe, which is a wide Entity and a long-lived! Courage, your Majesty!

      So stand matters as Friedrich Wilhelm journeys towards Mannheim: human politeness will have to cloak well, and keep well down, a good many prickly points in the visit ahead. Alas, poor Friedrich Wilhelm has got other matter to think of, by the time we arrive in Mannheim.

      CATASTROPHE ON JOURNEY HOMEWARDS.

       Table of Contents

      The Royal Party, quitting Ludwigsburg—on Thursday, 3d August, 1730, some hours after dinner, as I calculate it—had but a rather short journey before them: journey to a place called Sinzheim, some fifty or sixty miles; a long way short of Heidelberg; the King's purpose being to lodge in that dilapidated silent Town of Sinzheim, and leave both Heidelberg and Mannheim, with their civic noises, for the next day's work. Sinzheim, such was the program, as the Prince and others understood it; but by some accident, or on better calculation, it was otherwise decided in the royal mind: not at Sinzheim, intricate decayed old Town, shall we lodge to-night, but five or six miles short of it, in the naturally silent Village of Steinfurth, where good clean empty Barns are to be found. Which latter is a favorite method of his Majesty, fond always of free air and the absence of fuss. Shake-downs, a temporary cooking apparatus, plenty of tobacco, and a tub to wash in: this is what man requires, and this without difficulty can be got. His Majesty's tastes are simple; simple, and yet good and human. Here is a small Royal Order, which I read once, and ever since remember—though the reference is now blown away, and lost in those unindexed Sibylline Farragos, the terror of human nature;—let us copy it from memory, till some deliverer arise with finger on page. [Probably in Rodenbeck's Beitrage,—but long sad searching there, and elsewhere, proves unavailing at present. Historical Farragos without INDEX; a hundred, or several hundred, blind sacks of Historical clippings, generally authentic too if useless, and not the least scrap of LABEL on them:—are not these a handy article!] "At Magdeburg, on this Review-Journey, have dinner for me, under a certain Tree you know of, outside the ramparts." Dinner of one sound portion solid, one ditto liquid, of the due quality; readied honestly—and to be eaten under a shady Tree; on the Review-ground itself, with the summer sky over one's head. Could Jupiter Tonans, had he been travelling on business in those parts, have done better with his dinner?—

      "At Sinzheim?" thinks his Royal Highness; and has spoken privily to the Page Keith. To glide out of their quarters there, in that waste negligent old Town (where post-horses can be had), in the gray of the summer's dawn? Across the Rhine to Speyer is but three hours riding; thence to Landau, into France, into—? Enough, Page Keith has undertaken to get horses, and the flight shall at last be. Husht, husht. To-morrow morning, before the sparrow wake, it is our determination to be upon the road!

      Ruins of the Tower of Stauffen, HOHEN or High STAUFFEN, where Kaiser Barbarossa lived once, young and ruddy, and was not yet a MYTH, "winking and nodding under the Hill at Salzburg,"—yes, it is but a few miles to the right there, were this a deliberate touring party. But this is a rapid driving one; knows nothing about Stauffen, cares nothing.—We cannot fancy Friedrich remembered Barbarossa at all; or much regarded Heilbronn itself, the principal and only famous Town they pass this day. The St. Kilian's Church, your Highness, and big stone giant at the top of the steeple yonder—adventurous masons and slater people get upon the crown of his head, sometimes, and stand waving flags. [Buddaus, Lexicon, ii.? Heilbronn.] The Townhouse too (RATHHAUS), with its amazing old Clock? And Gotz von Berlichingen, the Town-Councillors once had him in prison for one night, in the "Gotz's Tower" here; your Highness has heard of "Gotz with the Iron Hand"? Berlichingens still live at Jaxthausen, farther down the Neckar Valley, in these parts; and show the old HAND, considerably rusted now. Heilbronn, the most famous City on the Neckar; and its old miraculous Holy Well—? What cares his Highness! Weinsberg again, which is but a few miles to the right of us—there it was that the Besieged Wives did that astonishing feat, 600 years ago; coming out, as the capitulation bore, "with their most valuable property," each brought her Husband on her back (were not the fact a little uncertain!)—whereby the old Castle has, to this day, the name "WEIBERTREUE, Faithfulness of Women." Welf's Duchess, Husband on back, was at the head of those women; a Hohenzollern ancestor of yours, I think I have heard, was of the besieging party. [Siege is notorious enough; A.D. 1140: Kohler Reichshistorie, p. 167, who does not mention the story of the women; Menzel (Wolfgang), Geschichte der Deutschen, p. 287, who takes no notice that it is a highly mythical story—supported only by the testimony of one poor Monk in Koln, vaguely chronicling fifty years after date and at that good distance.] Alas, thinks his Royal Highness, is there not a flower of Welfdom now in England; and I, unluckiest of Hohenzollerns, still far away from her here! It is at Windsor, not in Weinsberg, or among the ruins of WEIBERTREUE, that his Highness wishes to be.

      At Heilbronn our road branches off to the left; and we roll diligently towards Sinzheim, calculating to be there before nightfall. Whew! Something has gone awry at Sinzheim: no right lodging in the waste Inns there; or good clean Barns, of a promising character, are to be had nearer than there: we absolutely do not go to Sinzheim to-night; we are to stop at