Friedrich Wilhelm grumbles an assent, "Well, then:--but I will be passive, observe; not a GROSCHEN of Dowry, for one thing!"--And this is the first appearance of the young Margraf Friedrich, Heir-Apparent of Baireuth; who comes in as a hypothetic figure, at this late stage;--and will carry off the fair prize, as is well known. Still only doing the Grand Tour; little dreaming of the high fortune about to drop into his mouth. So many wooers, "four Kings" among them, suing in vain; him, without suing, the Fates appoint to be the man.
Not a bad young fellow at all, though no King. Wilhelmina, we shall find, takes charmingly to him, like a good female soul;regretless of the Four Kings;--finds her own safe little island there the prettiest in the world, after such perils of drowning in stormy seas.--Of his Brandenburg genealogy, degree of cousinship to Queen Caroline of England, and to the lately wedded young gentleman of Anspach Queen Caroline's Nephew, we shall say nothing farther, having already spoken of it, and even drawn an abstruse Diagram of it, [Antea, vol. v. p. 309c.] sufficient for the most genealogical reader. But in regard to that of the peremptory "Not a GROSCHEN of Dowry" from Friedrich Wilhelm (which was but a bark, after all, and proved the reverse of a bite, from his Majesty), there may a word of explanation be permissible.
The Ancestor of this Baireuth Prince Friedrich,--as readers knew once, but doubtless have forgotten again,--was a Younger Son;and for six generations so it stood: not till the Father of this Friedrich was of good age, and only within these few years, did the Elder branch die out, and the Younger, in the person of said Father, succeed to Baireuth. Friedrich's Grandfather, as all these progenitors had done, lived poorly, like Cadets, on apanages and makeshifts.
So that the Young Prince's Father, George Friedrich, present incumbent, as we may call him, of Baireuth, found himself--with a couple of Brothers he has, whom also we may transiently see by and by--in very straitened circumstances in their young years.
THEIR Father, son of younger sons as we saw, was himself poor, and he had Fourteen of them as family. Now, in old King Friedrich I.'s time, it became apparent, as the then reigning Margraf of Baireuth's children all died soon after birth, that one of these necessitous Fourteen was likely to succeed in Baireuth, if they could hold out. Old King Friedrich thereupon said, "You have chances of succession; true enough,--but nobody knows what will become of that. Sell your chance to me, who am ultimate Heir of all: I will give you a round sum,--the little 'Domain of Weverlingen' in the Halberstadt Country, and say 'Half a Million Thalers;' there you can live comfortably, and support your Fourteen Children,"--"Done," said the necessitous Cousin; went to Weverlingen accordingly; and there lived the rest of his days, till 1708; leaving his necessitous Fourteen, or about Ten of them that were alive and growing up, still all minors, and necessitous enough.
The young men, George Friedrich at the top of them, kept silence in Weverlingen, and conformed to Papa; having nothing to live upon elsewhere. But they had their own thoughts; especially as their Cousin of Baireuth was more and more likely to die childless.
And at length, being in the Kaiser's service as soldiers some of them, and having made what interest was feasible, they, early in Friedrich Wilhelm's reign, burst out. That is to say, appealed to the REICHSHOFRATH (Imperial Aulic Council at Vienna; chief Court of the Empire in such cases); openly protesting there, That their Papa had no power to make such a bargain, selling their birthright for immediate pottage; and that, in brief, they would not stand by it at all;--and summoned Friedrich Wilhelm to show cause why they should.
Long lawsuit, in consequence; lengthy law-pleadings, and much parchment and wiggery, in that German Triple-Elixir of Chancery;--little to the joy of Friedrich Wilhelm. Friedrich Wilhelm, from the first, was fairness itself: "Pay me back the money; and let it be, in all points, as you say!" answered Friedrich Wilhelm, from the first. Alas, the money was eaten; how could the money be paid back? The Reichshofrath dubitatively shook its wig, for years: