All which would be nothing, or almost less, to Wilhelmina, walking fancy-free there,--were it not for Papa and Mamma, and the importunate insidious by-standers. Who do make a thing of it, first and last! Never in any romance or stage-play was young Lady, without blame, without furtherance and without hindrance of her own, so tormented about a settlement in life;--passive she, all the while, mere clay in the hands of the potter; and begging the Universe to have the extreme goodness only to leave her alone!--Thus too, among the train of King August in this Berlin visit, a certain Soldier Official of his, Duke of Sachsen Weissenfels, Johann Adolf by name, a poor Cadet Cousin of the Saxon House,--another elderly Royal Highness of small possibility,--was particularly attentive to Wilhelmina; now and on subsequent occasions. Titular Duke of Weissenfels, Brother of the real Duke, and not even sure of the succession as yet; but living on King August's pay; not without capacity of drink and the like, some allege:--otherwise a mere betitled, betasselled elderly military gentleman, of no special qualities, evil or good;--who will often turn up again in this History; but fails always to make any impression on us except that of a Serene Highness in the abstract;unexceptionable Human Mask, of polite turn, behung with titles, and no doubt a stomach in the inside of it: he now, and afterwards, by all opportunities, diligently continued his attentions in the Wilhelmina quarter. For a good while it was never guessed what he could be driving at; till at last Queen Sophie, becoming aware of it, took him to task; with cold severity, reminded him that some things are on one's level, and some things not. To which humbly bowing, in unfeigned penitence, he retired from the audacity, back foremost: Would never even in dreams have presumed, had not his Prussian Majesty authorized;would now, since HER Prussian Majesty had that feeling, withdraw silently, and live forgotten, as an obscure Royal Highness in the abstract (though fallen Widower lately) ought to do. And so at least there was an end of that matter, one might hope,--though in effect it still abortively started up now and then, on Papa's part, in his frantic humors, for years to come.
Then there is the Margraf of Schwedt, Friedrich Wilhelm by name, chief Prince of the Blood, his Majesty's Cousin, and the Old Dessauer's Nephew; none of the likeliest of men, intrinsically taken: he and his Dowager Mother--the Dessauer's Sister, a high-going, tacitly obstinate old Dowager (who dresses, if Irecollect, in flagrant colors)--are very troublesome to Wilhelmina. The flagrant Dame--she might have been "Queen-Mother"once forsooth, had Papa and my Brother but been made away with!--watches her time, and is diligent by all opportunities.
Chapter IV.
DOUBLE-MARRIAGE PROJECT IS NOT DEAD.
And the Double-Marriage, in such circumstances, are we to consider it as dead, then? In the soul of Queen Sophie and those she can influence, it lives flame-bright; but with all others it has fallen into a very dim state. Friedrich Wilhelm is still privately willing, perhaps in a degree wishful; but the delays, the supercilious neglects have much disgusted him; and he, in the mean while, entertains those new speculations. George II., never a lover of the Prussian Majesty's nor loved by him, has been very high and distant ever since his Accession; offensive rather than otherwise. He also is understood to be vaguely willing for the thing; willing enough, would it be so kind as accomplish itself without trouble to him. But the settlements, the applications to Parliament:--and all for this perverse Fred, who has become unlovely, and irritates our royal mind? George pushes the matter into its pigeon-holes again, when brought before him.
Higher thoughts occupy the soul of little George. Congress of Soissons, Convention of the Pardo, [Or, in effect, "Treaty of Madrid," 6th March, 1728. This was the PREFACE to Soissons;Termagant at length consenting there, "at her Palace of the Pardo"(Kaiser and all the world urging her for ten months past), to accept the Peace, and leave off besieging Gibraltar to no purpose (Coxe, i. 303).] Treaty of Seville; a part to be acted on the world-theatre, with applauses, with envies, almost from the very demi-gods? Great Kaisers, overshadowing Nature with their Pragmatic Sanctions, their preternatural Diplomacies, and making the Terrestrial Balance reel hither and thither;--Kaisers to be clenched perhaps by one's dexterity of grasp, and the Balance steadied again? Prussian Double-Marriage!
One royal soul there is who never will consent to have the Double-Marriage die: Queen Sophie. She had passed her own private act-of-parliament for it; she was a very obstinate wife, to a husband equally obstinate. "JE BOULEVERSERAI L'EMPIRE," writes she once; "I will overturn the German Empire," if they drive me to it, in this matter. [Letter copied by Dubourgay (in Despatch, marked PRIVATE, to Lord Townshend, 3d-14th May, 1729); no clear address given,--probably to Dubourgay himself, CONVEYED by "a Lady" (one of the Queen's Ladies), as he dimly intimates.] What secret manoeuvring and endeavoring went on unweariedly on royal Sophie's part, we need not say; nor in what bad element, of darkness and mendacity, of eavesdropping, rumoring, backstairs intriguing, the affair now moved. She corresponds on it with Queen Caroline of England; she keeps her two children true to it, especially her Son, the more important of them.
CROWN-PRINCE FRIEDRICH WRITES CERTAIN LETTERS.