History of Friedrich II of Prussia — Volume 05

8. ANNA AMELIA, born 9th November, 1723,—on the terms we have seen.

9. FRIEDRICH HEINRICH LUDWIG, born 18th January, 1726;—the famed Prince Henri, of whom we shall hear.

10. AUGUST FERDINAND, born 23d May, 1730: a brilliant enough little soldier under his Brother, full of spirit and talent, but liable to weak health;—was Father of the "Prince Louis Ferdinand," a tragic Failure of something considerable, who went off in Liberalism, wit, in high sentiment, expenditure and debauchery, greatly to the admiration of some persons; and at length rushed desperate upon the Frenoh, and found his quietus (10th October, 1806), four days before the Battle of Jena.

Chapter II. — A KAISER HUNTING SHADOWS

Treaty of Double-Marriage is ready for signing, once the needful Parliamentary preludings are gone through; Treaty is signed, thinks Wilhelmina,—forgetting the distance between cup and lip!—As to signing, or even to burning, and giving up the thought of signing, alas, how far are we yet from that! Imperial spectre-huntings and the politics of most European Cabinets will connect themselves with that; and send it wandering wide enough,—lost in such a jungle of intrigues, pettifoggings, treacheries, diplomacies domestic and foreign, as the course of true-love never got entangled in before.

The whole of which extensive Cabinet operations, covering square miles of paper at this moment,—having nevertheless, after ten years of effort, ended in absolute zero,—were of no worth even to the managers of them; and are of less than none to any mortal now or henceforth. So that the method of treating them becomes a problem to History. To pitch them utterly out of window, and out of memory, never to be mentioned in human speech again: this is the manifest prompting of Nature;—and this, were not our poor Crown-Prince and one or two others involved in them, would be our ready and thrice-joyful course. Surely the so-called "Politics of Europe" in that day are a thing this Editor would otherwise with his whole soul, forget to all eternity! "Putrid fermentation," ending, after the endurance of much mal-odor, in mere zero to you and to every one, even to the rotting bodies themselves:—is there any wise Editor that would connect himself with that? These are the fields of History which are to be, so soon as humanly possible, SUPPRESSED; which only Mephistopheles, or the bad Genius of Mankind, can contemplate with pleasure.

Let us strive to touch lightly the chief summits, here and there, of that intricate, most empty, mournful Business,—which was really once a Fact in practical Europe, not the mere nightmare of an Attorney's Dream;—and indicate, so far as indispensable, how the young Friedrich, Friedrich's Sister, Father, Mother, were tribulated, almost heart-broken and done to death, by means of it.

IMPERIAL MAJESTY ON THE TREATY OF UTRECHT

Kaiser Karl VI., head of the Holy Romish Empire at this time, was a handsome man to look upon; whose life, full of expense, vicissitude, futile labor and adventure, did not prove of much use to the world. Describable as a laborious futility rather. He was second son of that little Leopold, the solemn little Herr in red stockings, who had such troubles, frights, and runnings to and fro with the sieging Turks, liberative Sobieskis, acquisitive Louis Fourteenths; and who at length ended in a sea of futile labor, which they call the Spanish Succession War.

This Karl, second son, had been appointed "King of Spain" in that futile business; and with much sublimity, though internally in an impoverished condition, he proceeded towards Spain, landing in England to get cash for the outfit;—arrived in Spain; and roved about there as Titular-King for some years, with the fighting Peterboroughs, Galways, Stahrembergs; but did no good there, neither he nor his Peterboroughs. At length, his Brother Joseph, Father Leopold's successor, having died, [17th April, 1711.] Karl came home from Spain to be Kaiser. At which point, Karl would have been wise to give up his Titular Kingship in Spain; for he never got, nor will get, anything but futile labor from hanging to it. He did hang to it nevertheless; and still, at this date of George's visit and long afterwards, hangs,—with notable obstinacy. To the woe of men and nations: punishment doubtless of his sins and theirs!—

Kaiser Karl shrieked mere amazement and indignation, when the English tired of fighting for him and it. When the English said to their great Marlborough: "Enough, you sorry Marlborough! You have beaten Louis XIV. to the suppleness of wash-leather, at our bidding; that is true, and that may have had its difficulties: but, after all, we prefer to have the thing precisely as it would have been without any fighting. You, therefore, what is the good of you? You are a—person whom we fling out like sweepings, now that our eyesight returns, and accuse of common stealing. Go and be—!"

Nothing ever had so disgusted and astonished Kaiser Karl as this treatment,—not of Marlborough, whom he regarded only as he would have done a pair of military boots or a holster-pistol of superior excellence, for the uses that were in him,—but of the Kaiser Karl his own sublime self, the heart and focus of Political Nature; left in this manner, now when the sordid English and Dutch declined spending blood and money for him farther. "Ungrateful, sordid, inconceivable souls," answered Karl, "was there ever, since the early Christian times, such a martyr as you have now made of me!" So answered Karl, in diplomatic groans and shrieks, to all ends of Europe. But the sulky English and Allies, thoroughly tired of paying and bleeding, did not heed him; made their Peace of Utrecht [Peace of Utrecht, 11th April, 1713; Peace of Rastadt (following upon the Preliminaries of Baden), 6th March, 1714.] with Louis XIV., who was now beaten supple; and Karl, after a year of indignant protests and futile attempts to fight Louis on his own score, was obliged to do the like. He has lost the Spanish crown; but still holds by the shadow of it; will not quit that, if he can help it. He hunts much, digests well; is a sublime Kaiser, though internally rather poor, carrying his head high; and seems to himself, on some sides of his life, a martyred much-enduring man.

IMPERIAL MAJESTY HAS GOT HAPPILY WEDDED

Kaiser Karl, soon after the time of going to Spain had decided that a Wife would be necessary. He applied to Caroline of Anspach, now English Princess of Wales, but at that time an orphaned Brandenburg-Anspach Princess, very Beautiful, graceful, gifted, and altogether unprovided for; living at Berlin under the guardianship of Friedrich the first King. Her young Mother had married again,—high enough match (to Kur-Sachsen, elder Brother of August the Strong, August at that time without prospects of the Electorate);—but it lasted short while: Caroline's Mother and Saxon Stepfather were both now, long since, dead. So she lived at Berlin brilliant though unportioned;—with the rough cub Friedrich Wilhelm much following her about, and passionately loyal to her, as the Beast was to Beauty; whom she did not mind except as a cub loyal to her; being five years older than he. [Forster, i. 107.] Indigent bright Caroline, a young lady of fine aquiline features and spirit, was applied for to be Queen of Spain; wooer a handsome man, who might even be Kaiser by and by. Indigent bright Caroline at once answered, No. She was never very orthodox in Protestant theology; but could not think of taking up Papistry for lucre's and ambition's sake: be that always remembered on Caroline's behalf.

The Spanish Majesty next applied at Brunswick Wolfenbuttel; no lack of Princesses there: Princesa Elizabeth, for instance; Protestant she too, but perhaps not so squeamish? Old Anton Ulrich, whom some readers know for the idle Books, long-winded Novels chiefly, which he wrote, was the Grandfather of this favored Princess; a good-natured old gentleman, of the idle ornamental species, in whose head most things, it is likely, were reduced to vocables, scribble and sentimentality; and only a steady internal gravitation towards praise and pudding was traceable as very real in him. Anton Ulrich, affronted more or less by the immense advancement of Gentleman Ernst and the Hanoverian or YOUNGER Brunswick Line, was extremely glad of the Imperial offer; and persuaded his timid Grand-daughter, ambitious too, but rather conscience-stricken, That the change from Protestant to Catholic, the essentials being so perfectly identical in both, was a mere trifle; that he himself, old as he was, would readily change along with her, so easy was it. Whereupon the young Lady made the big leap; abjured her religion; [1st May, 1707, at Bamberg.]—went to Spain as Queen (with sad injury to her complexion, but otherwise successfully more or less);—and sits now as Empress beside her Karl VI. in a grand enough, probably rather dull, but not singularly unhappy manner.

She, a Brunswick Princess, with Nephews and Nieces who may concern us, is Kaiserinn to Kaiser Karl: for aught I know of her, a kindly simple Wife, and unexceptionable Sovereign Majesty, of the sort wanted; whom let us remember, if we meet her again one day. I add only of this poor Lady, distinguished to me by a Daughter she had, that her mind still had some misgivings about the big leap she had made in the Protestant-Papist way. Finding Anton Ulrich still continue Protestant, she wrote to him out of Spain:—"Why, O honored Grandpapa, have you not done as you promised? Ah, there must be a taint of mortal sin in it, after all!" Upon which the absurdly situated old Gentleman did change his religion; and is marked as a Convert in all manner of Genealogies and Histories;—truly an old literary gentleman ducal and serene, restored to the bosom of the Church in a somewhat peculiarly ridiculous manner. [Michaelis, i. 131.]—But to return.

IMPERIAL MAJESTY AND THE TERMAGANT OF SPAIN

Ever after the Peace of Utrecht, when England and Holland declined to bleed for him farther, especially ever since his own Peace of Rastadt made with Louis the year after Kaiser Karl had utterly lost hold of the Crown of Spain; and had not the least chance to clutch that bright substance again. But he held by the shadow of it, with a deadly Hapsburg tenacity; refused for twenty years, under all pressures, to part with the shadow: "The Spanish Hapsburg Branch is dead; whereupon do not I, of the Austrian Branch, sole representative of Kaiser Karl the Fifth, claim, by the law of Heaven, whatever he possessed in Spain, by law of ditto? Battles of Blenheim of Malplaquet, Court-intrigues of Mrs. Masham and the Duchess: these may bring Treaties of Utrecht, and what you are pleased to call laws of Earth;—but a Hapsburg Kaiser knows higher laws, if you would do a thousand Utrechts; and by these, Spain is his!"

Poor Kaiser Karl: he had a high thought in him really though a most misguided one. Titular King of Men; but much bewildered into mere indolent fatuity, inane solemnity, high sniffing pride grounded on nothing at all; a Kaiser much sunk in the sediments of his muddy Epoch. Sure enough, he was a proud lofty solemn Kaiser, infinitely the gentleman in air and humor; Spanish gravities, ceremonials, reticences;—and could, in a better scene, have distinguished himself by better than mere statuesque immovability of posture, dignified endurance of ennui, and Hapsburg tenacity in holding the grip. It was not till 1735, after tusslings and wrenchings beyond calculation, that he would consent to quit the Shadow of the Crown of Spain; and let Europe BE at peace on that score.

The essence of what is called the European History of this Period, such History as a Period sunk dead in spirit, and alive only in stomach, can have, turns all on Kaiser Karl, and these his clutchings at shadows. Which makes a very sad, surprising History indeed; more worthy to be called Phenomena of Putrid Fermentation, than Struggles of Human Heroism to vindicate itself in this Planet, which latter alone are worthy of recording as "History" by mankind.

On the throne of Spain, beside Philip V. the melancholic new Bourbon, Louis XIV.'s Grandson, sat Elizabeth Farnese, a termagant tenacious woman, whose ambitious cupidities were not inferior in obstinacy to Kaiser Karl's, and proved not quite so shadowy as his. Elizabeth also wanted several things: renunciation of your (Kaiser Karl's) shadowy claims; nay of sundry real usurpations you and your Treaties have made on the actual possessions of Spain,—Kingdom of Sicily, for instance; Netherlands, for instance; Gibraltar, for instance. But there is one thing which, we observe, is indispensable throughout to Elizabeth Farnese: the future settlement of her dear Boy Carlos. Carlos, whom as Spanish Philip's second Wife she had given to Spain and the world, as Second or supplementary INFANT there,—a troublesome gift to Spain and others.

"This dear Boy, surely he must have his Italian Apanages, which, you have provided for him: Duchies of Parma and Piacenza, which will fall heirless soon. Security for these Italian Apanages, such as will satisfy a Mother: Let us introduce Spanish garrisons into Parma and Piacenza at once! How else can we be certain of getting those indispensable Apanages, when they fall vacant?" On this point Elizabeth Farnese was positive, maternally vehement; would take no subterfuge, denial or delay: "Let me perceive that I shall have these Duchies: that, first of all; or else not that only, but numerous other things will be demanded of you!"

Upon which point the Kaiser too, who loved his Duchies, and hoped yet to keep them by some turn of the game, never could decide to comply. Whereupon Elizabeth grew more and more termagant; listened to wild counsels; took up an Alberoni, a Ripperda, any wandering diplomatic bull-dog that offered; and let them loose upon the Kaiser and her other gainsayers. To the terror of mankind, lest universal war should supervene. She held the Kaiser well at bay, mankind well in panic; and continually there came on all Europe, for about twenty years, a terror that war was just about to break out, and the whole world to take fire. The History so called of Europe went canting from side to side; heeling at a huge rate, according to the passes and lunges these two giant figures, Imperial Majesty and the Termagant of Spain, made at one another,—for a twenty years or more, till once the duel was decided between them.

There came next to no war, after all; sputterings of war twice over,—1718, Byng at Messina, as we saw; and then, in 1727, a second sputter, as we are to see:—but the neighbors always ran with buckets, and got it quenched. No war to speak of; but such negotiating, diplomatizing, universal hope, universal fear, and infinite ado about nothing, as were seldom heard of before. For except Friedrich Wilhelm drilling his 50,000 soldiers (80,000 gradually, and gradually even twice that number), I see no Crowned Head in Europe that is not, with immeasurable apparatus, simply doing ZERO. Alas, in an age of universal infidelity to Heaven, where the Heavenly Sun has SUNK, there occur strange Spectre-huntings. Which is a fact worth laying to heart.—Duel of Twenty Years with Elizabeth Farnese, about the eventualities of Parma and Piacensa, and the Shadow of the lost Crown of Spain; this was the first grand Spectrality of Kaiser Karl's existence; but this was not the whole of them.

IMPERIAL MAJESTY'S PRAGMATIC SANCTION

Kaiser Karl meanwhile was rather short of heirs; which formed another of his real troubles, and involved him in much shadow-hunting. His Wife, the Serene Brunswick Empress whom we spoke of above, did at length bring him children, brought him a boy even; but the boy died within the year; and, on the whole, there remained nothing but two Daughters; Maria Theresa the elder of them, born 1717,—the prettiest little maiden in the world;—no son to inherit Kaiser Karl. Under which circumstances Kaiser Karl produced now, in the Year 1724, a Document which he had executed privately as long ago as 1713, only his Privy Councillors and other Official witnesses knowing of it then; [19th April, 1713 (Stenzel, iii. 5222).] and solemnly publishes it to the world, as a thing all men are to take notice of. All men had notice enough of this Imperial bit of Sheepskin, before they got done with it, five-and-twenty years hence. [Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, 1748.] A very famous Pragmatic Sanction; now published for the world's comfort!

By which Document, Kaiser Karl had formally settled, and fixed according to the power he has, in the shape of what they call a Pragmatic Sanction, or unalterable Ordinance in his Imperial House, "That, failing Heirs-male, his Daughters, his Eldest Daughter, should succeed him; failing Daughters, his Nieces; and in short, that Heirs-female ranking from their kinship to Kaiser Karl, and not to any prior Kaiser, should be as good as Heirs-male of Karl's body would have been." A Pragmatic Sanction is the high name he gives this document, or the Act it represents; "Pragmatic Sanction" being, in the Imperial Chancery and some others, the received title for Ordinances of a very irrevocable nature, which a sovereign makes, in affairs that belong wholly to himself, or what he reckons his own rights. [A rare kind of Deed, it would seem; and all the more solemn. In 1438, Charles VI. of France, conceding the Gallican Church its Liberties, does, it by "SANCTION PRAGMATIQUE;" Carlos III. of Spain (in 1759, "settling the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies on his third son") does the like,—which is the last instance of "PRAGMATIC SANCTION" in this world.]

This Pragmatic Sanction of Kaiser Karl's, executed 19th April, 1713, was promulgated, "gradually," now here now there, from 1720 to 1724, [Stenzel, pp. 522, 523.]—in which later year it became universally public; and was transmitted to all Courts and Sovereignties, as an unalterable law of Things Imperial. Thereby the good man hopes his beautiful little Theresa, now seven years old, may succeed him, all as a son would have done, in the Austrian States and Dignities; and incalculable damages, wars, and chances of war, be prevented, for his House and for all the world.

The world, incredulous of to-morrow, in its lazy way, was not sufficiently attentive to this new law of things. Some who were personally interested, as the Saxon Sovereignty, and the Bavarian, denied that it was just: reminded Kaiser-Karl that he was not the Noah or Adam of Kaisers; and that the case of Heirs-female was not quite a new idea on sheepskin. No; there are older Pragmatic Sanctions and settlements, by prior Kaisers of blessed memory; under which, if Daughters are to come in, we, descended from Imperial Daughters of older standing, shall have a word to say!—To this Kaiser Karl answers steadily, with endless argument, That every Kaiser is a Patriarch, and First Man, in such matters; and that so it has been pragmatically sanctioned by him, and that so it shall and must irrevocably be. To the other Powers, and indolent impartial Sovereigns of the world, he was lavish in embassies; in ardent representations; and spared no pains in convincing them that to-morrow would surely come, and that then it would be a blessedness to have accepted this Pragmatic Sanction, and see it lying for you as a Law of Nature to go by, and avoid incalculable controversies.

This was another vast Shadow, or confused high-piled continent of shadows, to which our poor Kaiser held with his customary tenacity. To procure adherences and assurances to this dear Pragmatic Sanction, was, even more than the shadow of the Spanish Crown, and above all after he had quitted that, the one grand business of his Life henceforth. With which he kept all Europe in perpetual travail and diplomacy; raying out ambassadors, and less ostensible agents, with bribes, and with entreaties and proposals, into every high Sovereign Court and every low; negotiating unweariedly by all methods, with all men. For it was his evening-song and his morning-prayer; the grand meaning of Life to him, till Life ended. You would have said, the first question he asks of every creature is, "Will you covenant for my Pragmatic Sanction with me? Oh, agree to it; accept that new Law of Nature: when the morrow comes, it will be salutary for you!"

Most of the Foreign Potentates idly accepted the thing,—as things of a distant contingent kind are accepted;—made Treaty on it, since the Kaiser seemed so extremely anxious. Only Bavaria, having heritable claims, never would. Saxony too (August the Strong), being in the like case, or a better, flatly refused for a long time; would not, at all,—except for a consideration. Bright little Prince Eugene, who dictated square miles of Letters and DIplomacies on the subject (Letters of a steady depth of dulness, which at last grows almost sublime), was wont to tell his Majesty: "Treatying, your Majesty? A well-trained Army and a full Treasury; that is the only Treaty that will make this Pragmatic Sanction valid!" But his Majesty never would believe. So the bright old Eugene dictated,—or, we hope and guess, he only gave his clerks some key-word, and signed his name (in three languages, "Eugenio von Savoye") to these square miles of dull epistolary matter,—probably taking Spanish snuff when he had done. For he wears it in both waistcoat-pockets;—has (as his Portraits still tell us) given up breathing by the nose. The bright little soul, with a flash in him as of Heaven's own lightning; but now growing very old and snuffy.

Shadow of Pragmatic Sanction, shadow of the Spanish Crown,—it was such shadow-huntings of the Kaiser in Vienna, it was this of the Pragmatic Sanction most of all, that thwarted our Prussian Double-Marriage, which lay so far away from it. This it was that pretty nearly broke the hearts of Friedrich, Wilhelmina, and their Mother and Father. For there never was such negotiating; not for admittance to the Kingdom of Heaven, in the pious times. And the open goings-forth of it, still more the secret minings and mole-courses of it, were into all places. Above ground and below, no Sovereign mortal could say he was safe from it, let him agree or not. Friedrich Wilhelm had cheerfully, and with all his heart, agreed to the Pragmatic Sanction; this above ground, in sight of the sun; and rashly fancied he had then done with it. Till, to his horror, he found the Imperial moles, by way of keeping assurance doubly sure, had been under the foundations of his very house for long years past, and had all but brought it down about him in the most hideous manner!—

THIRD SHADOW: IMPERIAL MAJESTY'S OSTEND COMPANY

Another object which Kaiser Karl pursued with some diligence in these times, and which likewise proved a shadow, much disturbance as it gave mankind, was his "Ostend East-India Company." The Kaiser had seen impoverished Spain, rich England, rich Holland; he had taken up a creditable notion about commerce and its advantages. He said to himself, Why should not my Netherlands trade to the East, as well as these English and Dutch, and grow opulent like them? He instituted (OCTROYA) an "Ostend East-India Company," under due Patents and Imperial Sheepskins, of date 17th December, 1722, [Buchholz, i. 88; Pfeffel, Abrege Chronologique de l'Histoire d'Allemagne (Park, 1776), ii. 522.] gave it what freedom he could to trade to the East. "Impossible!" answered the Dutch, with distraction in their aspect; "Impossible, we say; contrary to Treaty of Westphalia, to Utrecht, to Barrier Treaty; and destructive to the best interests of mankind, especially to us and our trade-profits! We shall have to capture your ships, if you ever send any."

To which the Kaiser counterpleaded, earnestly, diligently, for the space of seven years,—to no effect. "We will capture your ships if you ever send any," answered the Dutch and English. What ships ever could have been sent from Ostend to the East, or what ill they could have done there, remains a mystery, owing to the monopolizing Maritime Powers.

The Kaiser's laudable zeal for commerce had to expend itself in his Adriatic Territories,—giving privileges to the Ports of Trieste and Fiume; [Hormayr, OEsterreichischer Plutarch, x. 101.] making roads through the Dalmatian Hill-Countries, which are useful to this day;—but could not operate on the Netherlands in the way proposed. The Kaiser's Imperial Ostend East-India Company, which convulsed the Diplomatic mind for seven years to come, and made Europe lurch from side to side in a terrific manner, proved a mere paper Company; never sent any ships, only produced Diplomacies, and "had the honor to be." This was the third grand Shadow which the Kaiser chased, shaking all the world, poor crank world, as he strode after it; and this also ended in zero, and several tons of diplomatic correspondence, carried once by breathless estaffettes, and now silent, gravitating towards Acheron all of them, and interesting to the spiders only.

Poor good Kaiser: they say he was a humane stately gentleman, stately though shortish; fond of pardoning criminals where he could; very polite to Muratori and the Antiquaries, even to English Rymer, in opening his Archives to them,—and made roads in the Dalmatian Hill-Country, which remain to this day. I do not wonder he grew more and more saturnine, and addicted to solid taciturn field-sports. His Political "Perforce-Hunt (PARFORCE JAGD)," with so many two-footed terriers, and legationary beagles, distressing all the world by their baying and their burrowing, had proved to be of Shadows; and melted into thin air, to a very singular degree!

Chapter III. — THE SEVEN CRISES OR EUROPEAN TRAVAIL-THROES

In process of this so terrific Duel with Elizabeth Farnese, and general combat of the Shadows, which then made Europe quake, at every new lunge and pass of it, and which now makes Europe yawn to hear the least mention of it, there came two sputterings of actual War. Byng's sea-victory at Messina, 1718; Spanish "Siege of Gibraltar," 1727, are the main phenomena of these two Wars,—England, as its wont is, taking a shot in both, though it has now forgotten both. And, on the whole, there came, so far as I can count, Seven grand diplomatic Spasms or Crises,—desperate general European Treatyings hither and then thither, solemn Congresses two of them, with endless supplementary adhesions by the minor powers. Seven grand mother-treaties, not to mention the daughters, or supplementary adhesions they had; all Europe rising spasmodically seven times, and doing its very uttermost to quell this terrible incubus; all Europe changing color seven times, like a lobster boiling, for twenty years. Seven diplomatic Crises, we say, marked changings of color in the long-suffering lobster; and two so-called Wars,—before this enormous zero could be settled. Which high Treaties and Transactions, human nature, after much study of them, grudges to enumerate. Apanage for Baby Carlos, ghost of a Pragmatic Sanction; these were a pair of causes for mankind! Be no word spoken of them, except with regret and on evident compulsion.

For the reader's convenience we must note the salient points; but grudge to do it. Salient points, now mostly wrapt in Orcus, and terrestrially interesting only to the spiders,—except on an occasion of this kind, when part of them happens to stick to the history of a memorable man, To us they are mere bubblings-up of the general putrid fermentation of the then Political World; and are too unlovely to be dwelt on longer than indispensable. Triple Alliance, Quadruple Alliance, Congress of Cambrai, Congress of Soissons; Conference of Pardo, Treaty of Hanover, Treaty of Wusterhausen, what are they? Echo answers, What? Ripperda and the Queen of Spain, Kaiser Karl and his Pragmatic Sanction, are fallen dim to every mind. The Troubles of Thorn (sad enough Papist-Protestant tragedy in their time),—who now cares to know of them? It is much if we find a hearing for the poor Salzburg Emigrants when they get into Preussen itself. Afflicted human nature ought to be, at last, delivered from the palpably superfluous; and if a few things memorable are to be remembered, millions of things unmemorable must first be honestly buried and forgotten! But to our affair,—that of marking the chief bubblings-up in the above-said Universal Putrid Fermentation, so far as they concern us.

CONGRESS OF CAMBRAI

We already saw Byng sea fighting in the Straits of Messina; that was part of Crisis Second,—sequel, in powder-and-ball, of Crisis First, which had been in paper till then. The Powers had interfered, by Triple, by Quadruple Alliance, to quench the Spanish-Austrian Duel (about Apanage for Baby Carlos, and a quantity of other Shadows): "Triple Alliance" [4th January, 1717.] was, we may say, when France, England, Holland laboriously sorted out terms of agreement between Kaiser and Termagant: "Quadruple" [18th July, 1718.] was when Kaiser, after much coaxing, acceded, as fourth party; and said gloomily, "Yes, then." Byng's Sea-fight was when Termagant said, "No, by—the Plots of Alberoni! Never will I, for my part, accede to such terms!" and attacked the poor Kaiser in his Sicilies and elsewhere. Byng's Sea-fight, in aid of a suffering Kaiser and his Sicilies, in consequence. Furthermore, the French invaded Spain, till Messina were retaken; nay the English, by land too, made a dash at Spain, "Descent on Vigo" as they call it,—in reference to which take the following stray Note:—

"That same year [1719, year after Byng's Sea-fight, Messina just about recaptured], there took effect, planned by the vigorous Colonel Stanhope, our Minister at Madrid, who took personal share in the thing, a 'Descent on Vigo,' sudden swoop-down upon Town and shipping in those Gallician, north-west regions. Which was perfectly successful,—Lord Cobham leading;—and made much noise among mankind. Filled all Gazettes at that time;—but now, again, is all fallen silent for us,—except this one thrice-insignificant point, That there was in it, 'in Handyside's Regiment,' a Lieutenant of Foot, by name STERNE, who had left, with his poor Wife at Plymouth, a very remarkable Boy called Lorry, or LAWRENCE; known since that to all mankind. When Lorry in his LIFE writes, 'my Father went on the Vigo expedition,' readers may understand this was it. Strange enough: that poor Lieutenant of Foot is now pretty much all that is left of this sublime enterprise upon Vigo, in the memory of mankind;—hanging there, as if by a single hair, till poor TRISTRAM SHANDY be forgotten too." [Memoirs of Laurence Sterne, written by himself for his Daughter (see Annual Register, Year 1775, pp. 50-52).]

In short, the French and even the English invaded Spain; English Byng and others sank Spanish ships: Termagant was obliged to pack away her Alberoni, and give in. She had to accede to "Quadruple Alliance," after all; making it, so to speak, a Quintuple one; making Peace, in fact, [17th February, 1720.]—general Congress to be held at Cambrai and settle the details.

Congress of Cambrai met accordingly; in 1722,—"in the course of the year," Delegates slowly raining in,—date not fixable to a day or month. Congress was "sat," as we said,—or, alas, was only still endeavoring to get seated, and wandering about among the chairs,—when George I. came to Charlottenburg that evening, October, 1723, and surveyed Wilhelmina with a candle. More inane Congress never met in this world, nor will meet. Settlement proved so difficult; all the more, as neither of the quarrelling parties wished it. Kaiser and Termagant, fallen as if exhausted, had not the least disposition to agree; lay diplomatically gnashing their teeth at one another, ready to fight again should strength return. Difficult for third parties to settle on behalf of such a pair. Nay at length the Kaiser's Ostend Company came to light: what will third parties, Dutch and English especially, make of that?

This poor Congress—-let the reader fancy it—spent two years in "arguments about precedencies," in mere beatings of the air; could not get seated at all, but wandered among the chairs, till "February, 1724." Nor did it manage to accomplish any work whatever, even then; the most inane of Human Congresses; and memorable on that account, if on no other. There, in old stagnant Cambrai, through the third year and into the fourth, were Delegates, Spanish, Austrian, English, Dutch, French, of solemn outfit, with a big tail to each,—"Lord Whitworth" whom I do not know, "Lord Polwarth" (Earl of Marchmont that will be, a friend of Pope's), were the English Principals: [Scholl, ii. 197.]—there, for about four years, were these poor fellow-creatures busied, baling out water with sieves. Seen through the Horn-Gate of Dreams, the figure of them rises almost grand on the mind.

A certain bright young Frenchman, Francois Arouet,—spoiled for a solid law-career, but whose OEDIPE we saw triumphing in the Theatres, and who will, under the new name of VOLTAIRE, become very memorable to us,—happened to be running towards Holland that way, one of his many journeys thitherward; and actually saw this Congress, then in the first year of its existence. Saw it, probably dined with it. A Letter of his still extant, not yet fallen to the spiders, as so much else has done, testifies to this fact. Let us read part of it, the less despicable part,—as a Piece supremely insignificant, yet now in a manner the one surviving Document of this extraordinary Congress; Congress's own works and history having all otherwise fallen to the spiders forever. The Letter is addressed to Cardinal Dubois;—for Dubois, "with the face like a goat," [Herzogin von Orleans, BRIEFE.] yet lived (first year of this Congress); and Regent d'Orleans lived, intensely interested here as third party:—and a goat-faced Cardinal, once pimp and lackey, ugliest of created souls, Archbishop of this same Cambrai "by Divine permission" and favor of Beelzebub, was capable of promoting a young fellow if he chose:—

"TO HIS EMINENCE CARDINAL DUBOIS (from Arouet Junior).

"CAMBRAI, July, 1722.

"... We are just arrived in your City, Monseigneur; where, I think, all the Ambassadors and all the Cooks in Europe have given one another rendezvous. It seems as if all the Ministers of Germany had assembled here for the purpose of getting their Emperor's health drunk. As to Messieurs the Ambassadors of Spain, one of them hears two masses a day, and the other manages the troop of players. The English Ministers [a LORD POLWARTH and a LORD WHITWORTH] send many couriers to Champagne, and few to London. For the rest, nobody expects your Eminence here; it is not thought you will quit the Palais-Royal to visit the sheep of your flock in these parts [no!], it would be too bad for your Eminence and for us all.... Think sometimes, Monseigneur, of a man who [regards your goat-faced Eminence as a beautiful ingenious creature; and such a hand in conversation as never was]. The one thing I will ask [of your goat-faced Eminence] at Paris will be, to have the goodness to talk to me." [OEuvres de Voltaire, 97 vols. (Paris, 1825-1834), lxviii. 95, 96.]