The bride was Frederika Louisa, not the eldest of their Daughters, but the next-eldest: younger than Wilhelmina, and still hardly fifteen; the first married of the Family. Very young she: and gets a very young Margraf,--who has been, and still is a minor;under his Mother's guardianship till now: not rich, and who has not had a good chance to be wise. The Mother--an excellent magnanimous Princess, still young and beautiful, but laboring silently under some mortal disease--has done her best to manage for him these last four or five years; [Pollnitz, <italic> Memoirs and Letters <end italic> (English Translation, London, I745), i. 200-204. There are "MEMOIRS of Pollnitz," then "MEMOIRS ANDLETTERS," besides the "MEMOIRS of Brandenburg" (posthumous, which we often cite); all by this poor man. Only the last has any Historical value, and that not much. The first two are only worth consulting, cautiously, as loose contemporary babble,--written for the Dutch Booksellers, one can perceive.] and, as I gather, is impatient to see him settled, that she may retire and die.
Friday forenoon, 19th May, 1729, the young Margraf arrived in person at Berlin,--just seventeen gone Saturday last, poor young soul, and very foolish. Sublime royal carriage met him at the Prussian frontier; and this day, what is more interesting, our "Crown-Prince rides out to meet him; mounts into the royal carriage beside him;" and the two young fools drive, in such a cavalcade of hoofs and wheels,--talking we know not what,--into Potsdam; met by his Majesty and all the honors. What illustrious gala there then was in Potsdam and the Court world, read,--with tedium, unless you are in the tailor line,--described with minute distinctness by the admiring Fassmann. [pp.396-401.] There are Generals, high Ladies, sons of Bellona and Latona; there are dinners, there are hautboys,--"two-and-thirty blackamoors," in flaming uniforms, capable of cymballing and hautboying "up the grand staircase, and round your table, and down again," in a frightfully effective manner, while you dine. Madame Kamecke is to go as Oberhofmeisterinn to Anspach; and all the lackeys destined thither are in their new liveries, blue turned up with red velvet.
Which is delightful to see. Review of the Giant grenadiers cannot fail; conspicuous on parade with them our Crown-Prince as Lieutenant-Colonel: "the beauty of this Corps as well as the perfection of their EXERCITIA,"--ah yes, we know it, my dim old friend. The Marriage itself followed, at Berlin, after many exercitia, snipe-shootings, feastings, hautboyings; on the 30th of the month; with torch-dance and the other customary trimmings;"Bride's garter cut in snips" for dreaming upon "by his Royal Majesty himself." The LUSTBARKEITEN, the stupendous public entertainments having ended, there is weeping and embracing (MOREHUMANO); and the happy couple, so-called happy, retire to Anspach with their destinies and effects.
A foolish young fellow, this new Brother-in-law, testifies Wilhelmina in many places. Finances in disorder; Mother's wise management, ceasing too soon, has only partially availed.
King "has lent some hundreds of thousands of crowns to Anspach [says Friedrich at a later period], which there is no chance of ever being repaid. All is in disorder there, in the finance way;if the Margraf gets his hunting and his heroning, he laughs at all the rest; and his people pluck him bare at every hand."[Schulenburg's Letter (in Forster, iii. 72).] Nor do the married couple agree to perfection;--far from it: "hate one another like cat and dog (like the fire, COMME LE FEU)," says Friedrich:
[Correspondence (more than once).] "his Majesty may see what comes of ill-assorted marriages!"--In fact, the union proved none of the most harmonious; subject to squalls always;--but to squalls only;no open tempest, far less any shipwreck: the marriage held together till death, the Husband's death, nearly thirty years after, divided it. There was then left one Son; the same who at length inherited Baireuth too,--inherited Lady Craven,--and died in Bubb Doddington's Mansion, as we often teach our readers.
Last year, the Third Daughter was engaged to the Heir-Apparent of Brunswick; will be married, when of age. Wilhelmina, flower of them all, still hangs on the bush, "asked," or supposed to be "asked by four Kings," but not attained by any of them; and one knows not what will be her lot. She is now risen out of the sickness she has had,--not small-pox at all, as malicious English rumor gave it in England;--and "looks prettier than ever,"writes Dubourgay.
Here is a marriage, then; first in the Family;--but not the Double-Marriage, by a long way! The late Hanover Tornado, sudden Waterspout as we called it, has quenched that Negotiation; and one knows not in what form it will resuscitate itself. The royal mind, both at Berlin and St. James's, is in a very uncertain state after such a phenomenon.
Friedrich Wilhelm's favor for the Crown-Prince, marching home so gallantly with his Potsdam Giants, did not last long. A few weeks later in the Autumn we have again ominous notices from Dubourgay.
And here, otherwise obtained, is a glimpse into the interior of the Berlin Schloss; momentary perfect clearness, as by a flash of lightning, on the state of matters there; which will be illuminative to the reader.
CROWN-PRINCE'S DOMESTICITIES SEEN IN A FLASH OF LIGHTNING.
This is another of those tragi-comic scenes, tragic enough in effect, between Father and Son; Son now about eighteen,--fit to be getting through Oxford, had he been an English gentleman of private station. It comes from the irrefragable Nicolai; who dates it about this time, uncertain as to month or day.
Fritz's love of music, especially of fluting, is already known to us. Now a certain Quantz was one of his principal instructors in that art, and indeed gave him the last finish of perfection in it.
